An 8 page booklet of work designed for setting cover for French lessons in an emergency. All the words the pupils need are on the sheet and pupils can complete the work on the page. Suitable for KS3 or KS4. Works for pupils who have studied the topic or who are unfamiliar with it, as all the words are provided on the page. Topics are “My School” and “Living in Norfolk.” Core language is opinions, reasons, connectives, infinitives. And some examples of past tense at the end.

The presentation slides from my talk in the Saturday Tech Talk series for teachers of English in Indonesia 20th November 2021. A recording of this talk will be available on Joe Dale’s youtube channel after the event.

This is designed to be done in Word on the computer (or as a google doc) but there’s no reason why you shouldn’t print it out and ask pupils to do it on paper. Telling stories about what happened when you went to the beach. Scaffolded with parallel texts and with pupils making their own glossary. Opinions and reasons, imperfect and perfect tenses - no prior knowledge necessary. I use it with Year 8.

A sentence building style resource to enable your classes to talk/write about songs they listen to in French, going beyond sentences, developing their answers.

A keep talking / paragraph builder for talking about table manners and the importance of handling bread correctly in France. Pupils can watch the YouTube video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yRkWCqcoms&list=PL2u4oHkid_n0kAt6WeDWE22QkqG3BNUmF&index=3 first, and then use this sheet to compare France and England and different situations. Example sentences: In France you can use your bread to wipe up the sauce on your plate but you shouldn’t put the bread on the table upside down. In England it is not polite to wipe your plate but you can dunk a biscuit in your tea.

Resource for working on the Prevert poem Le Cancre. Resources to make it accessible / focus on the content, not test comprehension. Includes links to YouTube videos of the poem. Good for School Topic or literature/culture independent of currrent topic.

Lesson on song Plus Tard by Oli et Bigflo to go with their video on YouTube. Tasks to make the song accessible. Not comprehension testing tasks. The link to the sound only version of the song doesn’t work anymore, but the video link still does. Just play the https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UgsqtaXiwI without projecting it for the first activity! Don’t rush for the pupils to understand everything from the first activity! That’s what the rest of the lesson is for!!!

A mystery that will take you exploring the streets of Vesoul on the trail of a master of disguise whose ambitions are plaguing the town. The characters will talk to you in French, but by answering the easy questions, you will pick up the important clues and know where to go next. Click on the links or scan the QR code to listen to what they tell you. Many many thanks to everyone who has recorded a character! There is a powerpoint video tutorial to get you started. You can print out the document as a 24 page booklet, and use your computer to explore the town on Google Streetview. Or you can just open the document on your computer at the same time as Streetview and switch between windows. Let me know on twitter @veverettmfl how you are finding it. I recommend you try it first before using it with pupils. Use it lots. It will go out of date as soon as the Google Street View self driving car takes new photos of Vesoul! NB Google Street View has now been updated. But if you look in the comments at the bottom of this blog post, you can find a link to videos of the route so you can still do the Mystery. https://whoteacheslanguages.blogspot.com/2021/05/the-french-street-view-mysteries.html

Summary version of the powerpoint from my Language World 2020 talk on going Beyond the Sentence, building longer answers and stories. Video of the full talk. https://youtu.be/sfwRR2G3YOs

This is a lesson for the Computer suite or laptops/tablets to practise writing about Free Time in Spanish. Pupils work through the activities, dragging the correct words into place. It builds up from small chunks of language to translation of short paragraphs.

This is a lesson for the Computer suite or laptops/tablets to practise writing about Free Time. Pupils work through the activities, dragging the correct words into place. It builds up from small chunks of language to translation of short paragraphs.

Here are the resources from my Languages World 2018 workshop “Equipping Pupils to be Creative” including a French version of the “Going to the Beach” Keep Talking sheet.

An 8 page booklet to take pupils through from the concept of the Infinitive, the subject pronouns and verb endings, to being able to write their own amusing paragraphs. Step by step to enable pupils to succeed, with all the information required contained in the booklet. Ideal for classwork, cover work, homework or revision.

French Guided Translation on topic of My School. Pupils pick from the options for each French word in the sentence. For each option there is a square to colour in. Pupils are incentivised to translate accurately to get the final picture correct. Contains opinions, can, can’t have to + infinitive and conjunctions. Suitable for KS3 (and possibly KS2 or revision at KS4 Foundation Tier).

A guided translation on the topic of the environment, where if pupils pick the correct option for each word, a picture emerges. The activity incentivizes accurate translation - pick the wrong word, you don’t get the finished picture! For each word to be translated, there are options in French (a, b, c etc). These letters correspond to different colours to be used to colour in a square on the grid. At the end, the whole translation can be written out as a paragraph. Pupils can then set their own picture puzzle for a friend using the paragraph as a model. The translation is about protecting unicorns, so it is easily adapted to write about other animals hunted for their horns such as elephants, rhinos or narwhal. This can be a useful writing exercise if you are working on the topic of the environment. It can also be set as a stand-alone activity as pupils can often deduce the correct answer even if it is unfamiliar, because they can eliminate the incorrect alternatives. The attached image gives an idea of how translating the text produces the image of a giraffe eating leaves from a tree.

French. A writing frame to scaffold pupils’ work on the topic of Mon College (My School). Pupils use the scaffold to write extended sentences. Provide them with red, green, blue and black pens to write the different chunks in different colours. Red for verb + infinitive, green for connectives, blue for opinions. This makes writing more fun and kinaesthetic. It also means pupils take care over their writing. Pupils can see immediately how each chunk is used in a sentence. Pupils can immediately see when they are over using or under using one element. The worksheet is provided in Word so you can choose to remove the English for pupils who don’t need it. Suitable for KS3 or KS4 foundation tier.

French Mon College (My School) worksheet developing pupils’ ability to develop their own writing using chunks of language. The worksheet is designed to be doable using language on the sheet. The language is introduced with short parallel texts in English and French where the pupils find the language they are going to need for the rest of the lesson. The language used is opinions, verb + infinitive and connectives, along with vocabulary for the topic of school.

An interesting new take on gap fill activities. The text is obscured by a coffee spill. Pupils have to read and work out the complete text. They then use this as a model for their own writing. The topic is Au College (My School) and it is suitable for KS3 or KS4. The texts are built from opinions, verb + infinitives and connectives.

Watch the video to see how this spontaneous speaking activity works. A speaking activity for GCSE French to practise developing answers and speaking spontaneously. Topic “My School” One worksheet (best expanded and printed on A3) supports pupils in giving extended and complex answers. Get pupils to practise with a series of partners, reducing their dependence on the sheet as the activity progresses. The other sheet gives models of the kind of answers pupils can give. All the language for these answers is on the spontaneous speaking sheet. Rather than first going through and giving pupils the English for the sheet, give them both sheets at once and they will find the words they need for themselves. The language and skills modeled here can be transferred to other topics.

Designed to equip pupils to respond spontaneously to questions in the speaking or the writing exams. In a structured series of activities, it shows how to take key words from the question to get started with an answer. Then pupils develop the ability to develop an answer which will meet the key exam criteria of giving opinions, justifying them, referring to past and future, and narrating events. The last activity shows pupils how they can successfully answer any question, even if they get a question in the exam they don’t fully understand.