Hello! French and Spanish teacher in the UK (GCSE, IGCSE, A-Level, Pre-U). I produce worksheets, quick activities and sentence builder sheets. I have recently started to upload my work to TES, so if you like my resources, I'd be so grateful if you could leave a quick review. Thanks for visiting and I hope my stuff will help you in your lesson planning!
Hello! French and Spanish teacher in the UK (GCSE, IGCSE, A-Level, Pre-U). I produce worksheets, quick activities and sentence builder sheets. I have recently started to upload my work to TES, so if you like my resources, I'd be so grateful if you could leave a quick review. Thanks for visiting and I hope my stuff will help you in your lesson planning!
A brief guide on how to use a sentence builder for those who aren’t familiar with this fantastic tool that has been championed by MFL pedagogy legends such as Gianfranco Conti, Steve Smith and Dylan Vinales - I do not take credit for these ideas, I am simply organising them into a concise list of my personal favourite activities to accompany some of the sentence builders that I upload to my shop.
Here is my ‘lesson builder’ that I wrote about on this blog post and am sharing here after a few requests - the blog explains how it can be used. https://mflclassroommagic.com/2020/05/22/make-your-own-lesson-builder-cut-down-planning-time/
A worksheet for a lesson on the different vowel sounds in French (including the nasal vowels) - exercises practising pronunciation, then a minimal pairs listening task (transcript and answers included), followed by a gap-fill for the song dernière danse by Indila focusing on the vowel sounds only.
A challenging microlistening task based on the song fête de trop by Eddy de Pretto. This can be used AFTER students have had plenty of practice differentiating between the different vowel sounds in French, including the nasal sounds. A good way to practise (and also assess) the students’ understanding of these sounds. Answers included.
A worksheet on Maître Gims's new song 'Cameleon' from December 2017. Filling in the blanks in lyrics, matching up new vocab, and some short 'find the vocab' activities. You could also spend some time at the start of the lesson discussing French music, Maitre Gims, Black M and Sexion d'Assaut to see if any students have discovered their music before.
See this link for a free list of activities you can do with a sentence builder: https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/teaching-ideas-for-using-sentence-builders-12281180
Sentence builder for learning how to give opinions on your hobbies hobbies / free time activities with a range of activity ideas
A quiz in French on the Geography of France based on a fun video (in English) from the ‘Geography Now’ YouTube channel - the quiz is cut into two parts and is aimed at KS4/KS5. Answers included. Good for a cultural lesson. Link to video is in the word doc.
A (basic) quiz on French culture to complete with students over zoom / equivalent. Instructions in the powerpoint - I ‘share my screen’ with the students and open the powerpoint to go through each slide with students who complete the answers by typing them on their phones in an email to me.
A selection of links where I have compiled lists of key verbs in the main tenses for GCSE French, particularly useful for giving to students for GCSE revision. Download the document for details on how each link can be used by students and teachers. Printable Quizlet PDFs of each list are also included.
I have created the same resource for Spanish here: https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/-13156906
Short activity that can be used as a starter before introducing how to describe someone in the imperfect tense (for teaching these imperfect words as vocab rather than grammar - early stages)
For a lesson on physical descriptions, either use for
LISTENING: pupils have scrap paper and pen or a mini whiteboard. You give a short or long sentence in Spanish describing one of the people 1-6 on the images. You can therefore adapt the language to your group. Pupils then write down the number of the person it could be - you could even do a sentence that could describe 2 or 3 of the people to make it harder. To make this activity a bit easier, you could go through each photo from 1-6, and for each one give 2 short phrases, one that is true, one false, and pupils write the correct one.
SPEAKING: assuming pupils have had plenty of practise with the vocab, get them to give a short or long sentence describing each person.
A ‘bad translation’ listening activity to practise vocab on physical descriptions such as hair and eyes - les cheveux et les yeux. Transcript and answers included - teachers read the sentences and students listen and correct the ‘bad’ English translation - this requires ‘thorough processing’ and not superficial listening.
A sentence builder on the topic of describing someone’s personality - may be useful within the topics of family or friends / le caractère / la personnalité / la famille / les amis / descriptions. See this link for a free list of activities you can do with a sentence builder: https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/teaching-ideas-for-using-sentence-builders-12281180
A ‘disappearing text’ oral and memory task to practise using direct object pronouns to describe people and say how long you have known them - this activity helps to reinforce word order. Topic of family / friends / les relations familiales / les descriptions.
A set of translations from English to French to practise 3 key verbs on the topic of family relationships / les relations familiales - se fâcher contre, s’entendre avec, se disputer avec - a good revision exercise to go back to this topic or a writing practice for once pupils have had plenty of practise on reading & listening with these verbs eg. https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/reflexive-verbs-and-family-relationships-worksheets-12282709
les verbes pronominaux / la famille
All the sentence builders (along with several other activities) that I’ve made so far for KS4 French covering the topics of:
describing personality/character
describing physique/physical descriptions
a true friend / good parents
how you celebrated your birthday (perfect tense)
describing location of house
future studies
future tense / hobbies / free time
holidays - where you spend your holidays and how you travel
my dream job and qualities needed
my region / area
talking about your hobbies / free time and giving opinions on them
perfect tense / passé composé hobbies / free time
benefits of doing an internship / un stage
describing teachers and school activities
family relationships - saying whether you get on well or not with family members and why
See this link for a free list of activities you can do with a sentence builder: https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/teaching-ideas-for-using-sentence-builders-12281180
See this link for a free list of activities you can do with a sentence builder: https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/teaching-ideas-for-using-sentence-builders-12281180
A sentence builder frame to help students learn to answer the question how did you celebrate your birthday in French - perfect tense and key vocab
Family relationships sentence builder in Spanish for learning to describe how you get on with different family members and why. See this link for a free list of activities you can do with a sentence builder: https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/teaching-ideas-for-using-sentence-builders-12281180
A basic, minimalist sentence builder for introducing the perfect tense in French / passé composé roughly on the topic of free time / leisure activities / hobbies. See this link for a free list of activities you can do with a sentence builder: https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/teaching-ideas-for-using-sentence-builders-12281180
A sentence builder on the topic of health to answer the question ‘¿Qué haces para mantenerte en forma?’ along with a short listening ‘faulty transcript’ exercise and some translations / jumbled sentences. See this link for a free list of activities you can do with a sentence builder: https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/teaching-ideas-for-using-sentence-builders-12281180
