Monday 31 March 2014

My last ever blogpost.


Friday 28 March 2014

Nackvision - animated handwriting generator


Create Yours @ NackVision

I just discovered this whilst searching for something else. I'm wondering how I can use this in school? Perhaps instead of linoit or wordle?

public.fr - le mag 100% actu people

About 4 years ago I discovered a website called ados.fr and blogged about it here.

It was the ideal resource for anyone teaching AS or A2 French (or any advanced level course anywhere) as it contained up to the minute "news" on celebrities, music, cinema, horoscopes, and many other subjects which make me, and most men I presume, shudder.

The reason for the post is that it has now been replaced by www.public.fr.

Public is a trashy (in my opinion, you might like it!!) French magazine in the style of Closer, Heat, and so on...

It is, primarily, aimed at women from 15-35 (and teachers of French!) and calls itself "le mag 100% actu people".



It contains a mine of information which you might find useful to keep up to date with many of the topics studied at AS and A2 level in the UK and Higher level in Scotland.

It is the ideal place to go for new vocabulary and also "news" about celebrities, music, films, reality TV, relationship advice, who is doing what to, and with, whom and pretty much anything else that I consider trivial but which your students might be interested in.

If you can't be bothered to read or search through the whole site you can follow Public on twitter, like it on facebook or download the app.

Sad, isn't it?

Monday 24 March 2014

Schimpfwörter, gros mots, swear words...

There are some words I won't tolerate in my classroom.

The more proficient my students become at languages the more familiar they are with the vocabulary, the lazier they become.

I'm not going to put up with it any more.

So I've decided to ban certain words from my classroom.

My "swear words" include:

boring

good

nice

rubbish

very

....can you think of any others?






Wednesday 19 March 2014

Alors, on danse? Motivating with music.

Each week I attempt to teach French to a class of year 9 students who have targets ranging from level 2a to 3a.

They have one lesson a week and their attendance is not fantastic.

Each lesson has to be planned as if it were a stand-alone lesson and, most of the time, they don't remember what they've done from one week to the next.

Until now.

The topic we're studying at the moment is Music.

Last week, I introduced them to some francophone artists and we "learned" how to give opinions and compare 2 songs in French.

The songs we compared were Game Over by Vitaa ft Maitre Gims and Adieu by Coeur de Pirate (which has some amazing exploding heads in the video!! To be honest, that's the only reason I chose it!!)

To my amazement they actually liked the lesson and this morning, one of the boys came to me and said, "Do you know this song?"

He'd written the title on his hand:

Surprisingly, I did know the song, (thanks to Helen Myers who has used it with her classes and has made resources too) and said I'd play it for them if they got on with the work I had planned.

They did so I did.

This is it: Alors on Danse by Stromae.




The others then decided they liked it and could I play it again.

 I ended up playing the whole album.

This has really surprised me as when I took over the group in January getting them to stay in their seats and keep their hands off each other was a real challenge.