This is a list of generic essay phrases that I have used in my many model essays on La Haine which I give to my students at the start of the year and encourage them to use when writing their own essays on the film. In this way, students are "trained" to write their essays in a structured fashion, following the Point-Evidence-Evaluation model. I call this the bones of the essay, and the meat on those bones comes from their own planning and ideas. I also encourage my pupils to add to this list should they come across any expressions that they like/use that aren't already on the list. Although students obviously aren't allowed any aid in the exam with them, by the final exam, some of these phrases will be embedded in their work by force of repetition. Students will naturally develop "favourites" and provided that these are used in the correct context, it will enable them to focus more on the content, i.e. gaining more marks for the critical analysis of the ideas they put forward.

A concise yet comprehensive & colourful resource for French students between KS3 to KS4 which can easily be made into a personalised booklet which summarises all of the key French tenses, including Pluperfect, Perfect, Imperfect, Present (Regular & Irregular), Near Future, Future, Conditional & Conditional Perfect. My pupils find the tense summaries really useful and they have also been enlarged and put onto A3 and laminated by other staff to use as classroom wall display support.

Two useful insert for pupils to keep at the back of their books and/or to laminate on A3 for pupils to use when responding to 40, 90, and 150-word GCSE writing tasks. The foundation sheet has key verbs in past, present and future, as well as some common connectives and time phrases. This can be used by pupils to create simple and accurate responses to 40- and 90-word writing tasks in conjunction cognates and near-cognates and foundation level topic-specific vocabulary. I have even used this for my able KS3 Y8 classes. The higher sheet is double-sided and alongside a wider range of categorised verbs in past, present, future and conditional, it also includes examples of generic complex structures which could be incorporated into written responses to 90- and 150-word tasks. Feedback from pupils has been wholly positive, and these have also been useful in encouraging greater verbal responses from pupils in speaking tasks.

Two useful insert for pupils to keep at the back of their books and/or to laminate on A3 for pupils to use when responding to 40, 90, and 150-word GCSE writing tasks. The foundation sheet has key verbs in past, present and near future, as well as some common connectives and time phrases. This can be used by pupils to create simple and accurate responses to 40- and 90-word writing tasks in conjunction cognates and near-cognates and foundation level topic-specific vocabulary. I have even used this for my able KS3 Y8 classes. The higher sheet is double-sided and alongside a wider range of categorised verbs in past, present, future, near future and conditional, it also includes examples of generic complex structures which could be incorporated into written responses to 90- and 150-word tasks. Feedback from pupils has been wholly positive, and these have also been useful in encouraging greater verbal responses from pupils in speaking tasks.

Useful resource I created for all my GCSE French classes and also my KS3 top sets. Key verbs in 3 tenses and also time markers and conjunctions. These phrases are the high frequency type of expressions used in speaking and writing and it now includes phonetics for each one.

A self-made speaking mat which includes phonetics and PowerPoint presentation so that pupils of all ability ranges at GCSE can create extended answers to questions about smoking, drugs and alcohol. Suitable for all GCSE speaking and even writing preparation on the topic of Healthy Living/Lifestyle.

A 700-word model essay response to the 2019 Paper 2 question from the AQA French A-level exam “Analysez dans quelle mesure la phrase « la haine attire la haine » résume tout ce qui se passe dans ce film.” Useful for dissecting for structure, getting pupils to highlight Point, Evidence, Evaluation sections and also pinching useful vocabulary and ideas.

Bemoaning the lack of new GCSE-style assessment materials to accurately assess our pupils, and using a draft assessment resource from the AQA website as a rough guide, I create my own foundation writing paper on the topic of holidays. This will need to be used in conjunction with the writing marks scheme from the new AQA specification, but at present there are no raw mark - grade conversions. This can nonetheless be devised by teachers using either professional judgement following the assessment or using percentages of old UMS conversion tables (i.e. approx. 80% = A*).

A model AS French essay on the benefits and drawbacks of living together in contrast to getting married. This can be annotated or key vocabulary and/or structures can be identified and adapted by students.

PowerPoint presentation and supporting resource which introduces the main themes of La Haine. By this stage, pupils will already have built up a knowledge of the plot/storyline. Activities include a short translation starter, a match-up task which can be done in small groups, diamond 9 speaking task, a reading comprehension match-up task requiring students to match examples of specific events in film to specific themes, a synonym finder task, a short writing task to pen own examples from film and matching them to specific themes covered and a speaking task plenary to get pupils thinking about the importance and representation of the themes, as well as the director’s intentions.

A 675-word model answer to the question 2018 AQA A-level French Paper 2 question 13.1 “Analysez la représentation de la banlieue et des banlieusards dans ce film et combine cette représentation est réaliste” The model answer includes an introduction, 3 clear main paragraphs with point, evidence and evaluation, as well as a conclusion. The language used also ties into the La Haine writing framework resource available in my shop.

My model essay answer to past GERM1 AQA essay question: "Viele Erwachsene beklagen sich, dass Kinder zu lange vor der Glotze hängen. Wie reagieren Sie darauf? Bringt das Fernsehen mehr Vorteile als Nachteile?" This can be used as a vocabulary finding exercise, asking pupils to summarise points of each paragraph inEnglish. It can also be used as a basis to discuss essay structure and of course gives pupils a useful model which they can adapt ideas from. They can also read through it and alongside an AS mark scheme discuss what makes this essay a good piece of work.

Learning mat on GCSE topic of Leisure which pupils can use to form own ideas for a Controlled Assessment Speaking or Writing task. Areas include: favourite hobby & why, when you were younger VS now, what you did last weekend, future hobby and talking about a friend's hobby.

Model 630-word answer to the AQA A-Level French Paper 2 writing question. Very useful as an exemplar following possible mock writing paper reviews using the 2018 series, or simply to dig into for good structures, language and verb-tense recognition tasks.

A self-made PowerPoint on adjectives and adjectival agreements. Includes regular and irregular adjectives, as well as various adjectival patterns and adjectives which change meaning depending on whether they come before and after the noun. Includes examples of each as well as exercises on certain slides. Slides also make a useful handout for pupils. The accompanying word document is a list of useful adjectives to describe personality which can be used as an extension to PowerPoint in getting pupils to agree adjectives to describe someone in their family or a friend.

A model response to the AQA AS GERM1 Essay Writing Question: "Das Kino ist tot. Ein Kinobesuch ist teuer, die Auswahl der Filme ist schlecht und ich hasse die Werbung vor den Filmen. Ich sitze lieber bequem auf dem Sofa und sehe mir DVDs an. Wie reagieren Sie auf diese Meinung?" This can be utilised in a variety of ways; I usually get pupils to look at this alongside an AS writing marks scheme, extract key ideas, generic essay expressions and to list grammatical structures used. It is also a useful model for pupils to adapt when writing their own!

A self-penned AS model essay on the AQA essay question: « Le cinéma traditionnel est en voie de disparition à cause des DVD et le téléchargement en ligne. Grâce à Internet et aux DVD, il est de moins en moins nécessaire d’aller au cinéma pour voir un bon film» Les DVD et les films qu’on peut télécharger sur Internet, vont-ils remplacer le cinéma traditionnel ? Quel est l’avenir du cinéma ? Alongside it's use as a good model, pupils can also access this for key language, ideas, essay writing phrases.

A self-made PowerPoint on Negative Constructions covering ne...pas, ne…guère, ne…jamais, ne…plus, ne…que, ne…personne and ne…rien. It includes examples and explanations of how each one works and has a translation exercise at the end to incorporate ideas presented in previous slides. The slides make a useful handout for students.

36 questions on Le Silence de La Mer set out in 6 categories; Analysis & literary comparisons, characters, story & context, intentions of the author, personal reaction and themes in the form of a dice game. Pupils work in pairs and require a dice and a copy of the A2 speaking marks scheme along with this list of questions. Pupils take it in turn to roll the dice twice, once to determine the category and a second time to determine the question to answer. The other pupil uses the A2 mark scheme to rate their partner on a pre-determined aspect of the marks scheme (i.e. fluency, interaction, pronunciation) and awards a mark for each questions response. At the end of the task, pupils award each other an overall accuracy mark. This acts as a sort of tie-breaker! This task gets pupils talking and enables them to gain a better understanding of the marks scheme.

A PowerPoint presentation I recently used for a lesson observation which received glowing feedback. Prior to the lesson, print the slides 17-29 and attach to wall around the classroom. Graded and differentiated tasks and resources throughout will help impress, in a lesson that incorporates all 4 language skill areas. I have also included a writing framework task for the follow-up lesson, where pupils have to sequence a model writing answer and then adapt the language.