About

Bio

Hello and thank you for stopping by!

• I am a secondary teacher of French and Spanish in the UK, teaching both up to A-level.
• I am in my sixth year of teaching and am also taking on the role of Acting Head of French this year. I am currently completing the ISQAM Level 1 course.
• I have experience in the following: writing schemes of work and units of resources, setting summative assessments for the departments, organising and leading school trips, organising poetry recitation competitions, delivering cultural seminars, running Oxbridge grammar sessions, preparing native speakers for examination and running the Junior French Society in my school.
• My approach to MFL teaching is constantly evolving and I am always open to new ideas, whilst maintaining effective, traditional methods. I love to learn from colleagues, books, blogs and the relentlessly inspiring #mfltwitterati. However, it is fair to say that those who have had the greatest influence on my methodology so far are Steve Smith, who I was privileged enough to have as my PGCE tutor at UoB, and Gianfranco Conti of The Language Gym. You’re really missing out if you haven’t checked out their books and blogs! I have also learned a lot from the Michaela School method, and Katie Lockett’s hybrid of Parallel Texts and Sentence Builders.

Why I blog

1. To explore and reflect on different teaching ideas, activities, tools and approaches, for my own professional development.
2. To share my favourite methods and resources with the online teaching community.
3. To enjoy the learning process, above all. I love academia. I get a real buzz from getting my teeth into debate, juicy research, analysis and evaluation of different ideas. I guess I have never really left school!

Who this blog is for

This blog is aimed at trainees or new teachers who are seeking to develop their repertoire of lesson ideas, but also to improve their understanding of the methodological principles underpinning different activities and teaching sequences. However, it may also be of use to more experienced teachers looking to try out different ideas or learn something new!

TES

I am always producing resources for French and Spanish and have just begun uploading them to my TES shop, you might find something that will save you some planning time: https://www.tes.com/teaching-resources/shop/Eclaire13

Please note: As I have mentioned, I owe a lot of my methods and the ‘ideas’ on here to other teachers or resources I’ve seen online. I will endeavour to always provide credit to those whose work I am mentioning in posts, but also strongly welcome any messages to alert me to anything where you have reason to believe improper use has been made of your own work, or you would like me to remove such material.

Get in touch by leaving a comment below, or contact me via Twitter @EClaireMFL