KS3 French and GCSE French Writing Marksheet
French Writing GCSE and KS3 Marksheet I started teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) in an adult education college in 2009 and although I did set writing homework, it was voluntary. So, I wasn’t obliged to do lots of marking and therefore didn’t appreciate the levels of marking teachers actually have to do. So what changed?! In 2015, my life changed (!) and I began teaching KS3 French and GCSE French in secondary schools. At this point, I was expected to set and mark written homework for 8-11 different classes on a regular basis. Therefore, in the evenings, like many other secondary school language teachers, I spent hours marking…
French Speaking Questions for GCSE Practice
How To Help Students with The French Speaking General Conversation GCSE Exams In order to support the French Speaking of my students, I collated a number of foundation level and higher tier questions and put them into a handout which you will find at the bottom of the post. I have also highlighted keywords that sometimes students struggle to grasp, plus activity suggestions that can be used to support their revision for the general conversation exam. However, these questions might also be useful for the bullet points in the writing examinations. AQA French Speaking General Conversation Guidance for Students: FOUNDATION TIER: At foundation level your general french speaking conversation will last…
How To Learn Vocabulary for Modern Languages
How To Learn Vocabulary Effectively For modern languages, you need vocabulary to communicate well. However, students often find it difficult to remember words and sentences they are taught in the classroom between lessons. Some learners equally struggle to know how to learn vocabulary outside of the classroom, which can therefore present a problem in the ability to communicate verbally or in written form, as well as understand information aurally or through reading. If students are unable to complete the tasks required of them in the MFL classroom, then they will feel demotivated which will lead to its own issues including de-motivation, and even a feeling of failure or frustration. I started…
Speaking Languages Spontaneously with Questions
Speaking languages spontaneously can be quite of daunting, especially at in a GCSE French, German or Spanish classroom. However, one of my professional targets this year is to develop my application of teaching spontaneous speaking in languages at GCSE (in my case, that’s French and German), and so I am always on the look out for exciting speaking activities that will really help learners to be able to develop this skill within the classroom. I have found many activities through fantastic teachers on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest who willingly share their ideas, but I want to improve my own creativity in the classroom and have therefore developed an activity to…
8 German Listening Websites for GCSE
Why do GCSE students need German listening practice? My GCSE German students are fantastic at writing, they get on very well with reading and do well on speaking when they have plenty of vocabulary on a topic. The GCSE skill that many of them struggle the most with, however, is German listening. Due to limited time in lessons, it is vital for students to have the opportunity to practise their German listening outside of the classroom to tune their ears to the speed native Germans speak, since “what pupils reportedly find most problematic about listening is the pace of recorded material.” Barton (2006).In addition, this practice will allow learners to…
6 French Listening GCSE Websites To Improve Skills
Why Improve French Listening Skills for GCSE? For the revised 9-1 AQA GCSE French examinations from 2016, each skill: speaking, listening, reading and writing now accounts for 25% of the overall GCSE French grade. In addition, ‘students must enter at one tier for all four skills, not a combination of both’ (AQA Summary Of Changes). Therefore, developing a solid foundation to improve French listening skills is a vital component to being successful in the subject. There have also been changes in the allocation of marks. For example, ‘the requirement for students to manipulate and make more independent use of the target language’ (AQA Summary of Changes). As well as are…
House Assembly Idea – Doing The Right Thing
Doing The Right Thing Assembly Idea – My First Ever! This week, my vertical form is up to take the house assembly and, apart from it being my first ever house assembly, it has been quite a stressful event! The theme for this term is ‘Taking Responsibility’ and seeing as it’s nearly Easter and thus, the end of term, the topic has been pretty well covered and we are running out of great assembly ideas based around this topic, hence the stress levels. A few weeks ago, I found a link to a YouTube video, which I thought could relate well to the assembly idea, cryptically entitled: A Video That Will…
