John Bald/language and literacy

News in Slow French and Spanish

Very interesting subscription sites for beginners to A level students, with French and Spanish read at a rate people can understand, with a transcript. Lifetime access for beginners, £100ish, or annual subs for more advanced levels. Worth very serious consideration for schools and sixth form colleges.  

French

Spanish

Verb Hubs

These verbhubs help you to form simple sentences at foundation level and higher levels. The introduction has an explanation of the importance of verbs, and each hub gives you the first person in the present, two future and three past tenses. If you print them out, you can use each sheet to compose sentences in different tenses for the verbs, using whatever topic vocab you choose. They include regular and the three most common irregular verbs.

This first hub is first person only - I - as most of the writing you do for GCSE is first person. This meets foundation requirements. Having the tenses available enables you to meet the first requirement for a higher grade pass - add other tenses if you wish to be more sophisticated. For grade C you need evidence of being able to write in the third person singular - he, she - and first person plural - we. These are in verb hub 2. 

Download Verb-hubs-1 with English equvalents

Download Verb hubs 2 revised

 

 

GCSE requirements summary

These are some notes for the guidance of Hackney primary teachers considering taking GCSE this year with AQA.

 

GCSE Requirements Summarised.

 

1. Foundation Tier, Grades G to C.  Higher Tier, Grades D to A*. Higher tier chiefly requires ability to put verbs into one past and one future tense - eg 

 

Tengo que trabajar

Tuvé que trabajar

Voy a tener que trabajar

Almost all the writing you do is in the first person.

 

2. Topics

 

·         My world

·         Holiday Time and Travel

·         Work and Lifestyle

·        The young person in society.

 

3. Components

 

Speaking. 8-10mins Foundation – role play, presentation of 30-90 seconds, questions, two to three topics.  You are allowed 10 mins prep time – ie you can make some notes and speak from them.

Listening test. 25%, 30 mins foundation, 40mins higher. Includes preparation time. Can be from any part of the syllabus, but mostly short items. The main difficulty with higher is probably the speed.

Reading test. Mostly short items, and often answers are ticking boxes.

Writing. Three pieces of coursework – total 250-200 words foundation, total 4-500 words higher. Three different themes (these can be the same themes you choose for speaking). Controlled conditions for at least one of these. You may complete a draft, which will be returned to you with an official comment sheet – you can then work on the draft in the light of the sheet, and complete the coursework assessment.  (QCA, p86 has directions, and these can be used for planning)

 

Game Plan

For both tiers, you need to be able to construct simple sentences in Spanish in speaking and writing, and to be able to recognise them in listening and reading. The listening and reading will include some irrelevant information in order to try to confuse you - this is not my idea, and I think it is educationally unsound.

 

You need

Some sentence hubs, positive and negative, that you can build sentences around.

Practice in listening, to get used to speed

A clear plan to build up skills on your selected topics

A buddy.

15 minutes protected time each day, at your discretion.

 

 

GCSE Spanish from scratch. Lesson 6

BBC Bitesize, Spanish Foundation Level, Listening - study transcripts of school life and leisure from this link, then practise listening to the sample tasks and answering questions. Repeat as necessary, to build understanding of how words are pronounced and put together in spoken Spanish. If confident, move to the higher levels. It is important to check vocabulary before trying the listening tests, as you can't do this on the hoof.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/spanish/listeningf/

GCSE Spanish From Scratch: Resources from Monica Gonçalves

My colleague Monica Gonçalves, head of languages at Bridge Academy, has kindly agreed to share these resources from her GCSE group.  Monica is happy for teachers to use them, but retains the copyright. These resources will be particularly useful to beginners and near beginners.

Download qu_tiempo_hace.doc

Download descriptions1a.ppt

Download descrp_of_personality.ppt

Download el_tiempo1_sound_not_working.ppt

Download free_time_presentation.ppt

Download q_tiempo_hace_hoy_en_espana.doc

Download la_familia.ppt

Download la_familia_1a.ppt

Download La_familia_de_Bart.doc

Download las_descripciones.ppt

Download personal_descriptions.ppt

Download picturesentences_allaboutfall_espanol.pdf

Download SER_Y_ESTAR.ppt

Download Ser_estar.ppt

Download SER-estar.ppt

Download worksheet1mi_tiempo_libre.doc

GCSE Spanish from scratch, lessons 4 and 5

GCSE Spanish from Scratch Lesson 4

Homework for lesson 3 was to make a simple question from each of the main question words. We then practised this in Lesson 4, spent time sharing each other’s questions, and looked at Little Tails, La Pequeña Caperucita Roja.

Here is a completed sample.

 Question           

                                               

¿Cuánto cuesta el desayuno?                  

¿Cuál es tu opinión de la ciudad?             

¿Dónde está el museo?                                            

¿Quién tiene un coche?                                                

¿Cuándo empiezas a trabajar?                                   

¿Adónde vamos?                                           

¿Qué tren va a Barcelona, por favor?      

¿Cómo se dice en espanol?                         

 

GCSE Spanish From Scratch, Lesson 5.

The plan of the course from this point on is to apply what we’ve learned about Spanish sentence structures to the units required for GCSE, and at the same time to include high-frequency Spanish from Little Tails and similar sources.

Lesson 5, weather travel and holidays, will focus on GCSE Complete Revision and Practice Section 2, pages, 17-18, 20, 22 – 26. 30 and 31.

We will also study the BBC Bitesize foundation questions on holidays, at this link

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/spanish/listeningf/2_f_list_holidays_rev1.shtml

We will begin with the transcript, and explain it, including the past tenses, and listen carefully until we understand all of it. We will then listen to it several times, so that we can catch the nuances of the Spanish speech.

Finally, we will establish a personal game plan for each student over the next two weeks, which include half term. The key factor in this will be protecting 10 to 15 minutes a day to study Spanish.

GCSE Spanish from Scratch, Lesson 3.

Download gcse_spanish_from_scratch_3.doc

This lesson will be consolidation and application - we'll make our own sentences, and begin to practise saying them. This plan is, therefore, more of an outline than the last two. The precise content will depend on what the course members wish to say, but we will introduce the idea of ser for permanent characteristics, and estar for more transient ones.

GCSE Spanish from Scratch, Lesson 2.

Note This lesson covers a great deal of grammatical ground in one go. It was experimental, and I was ready to split it in two if necessary. However, it worked well. Now that we have a basic framework in place, we will proceed to more pair and conversation work next week. Thanks to the correspondent who pointed out some errors in the original lesson posting, and to all students for their patience and co-operation with this new way of doing things.  

Download gcse_spanish_from_scratch_2.doc

GCSE Spanish from scratch, lesson 1

Over the next two years, roughly 90 primary teachers and assistants in Hackney will be taking GCSE Spanish. I will be teaching one of these courses, and, as a point of reference for colleagues, will be posting the lesson plan for each session on this site. The approach takes account of current research into brain activity, and of advances in languages teaching made by, among others, the late Michel Thomas - it is not the same as Thomas's method, however, as it extends to the systematic teaching of writing - which is seen as an asset rather than a liability - and will focus closely on the requirements of GCSE once we have passed the initial stages.  The goal is to enable the students to take GCSE in one or two years, depending on how much work they wish to put into it. The first session was well attended and ended in smiles - here it is.

Download outline_lesson_plan_1.doc