Professor Basil Bernstein, when he was at the University of London Institute of Education, coined the phrase “the travelling textbook”. He was referring to the tremendous learning advantages that are gained by children who could take home the textbook used in class. Yet because no textbook fills all the gaps in learners’ linguistic knowledge, they need something extra.

Any coursebook must condense a year’s language tuition into 100 or so pages, despite being used by pupils of very differing abilities. This is why, for many learners, part one of a published course is manageable, part two far less so, and part three may as well be in another language for all except the most gifted linguists.

Since the average textbook’s content cannot be covered thoroughly in a school year, many language teachers scramble through the closing chapters of their textbook. It makes it far harder for learners to take over in September from where they left off in July. This explains why I have periodically received homework in the past historic which should have been in the passe compose: a pupil has consulted their new textbook’s verb section and has read the tense heading “past historic” among all the others and plumped straight for it.

A simple way to address this is to equip learners with the “travelling piece of paper”. At the start of a new school year, most learners will still need to refer to the same key structures as they did at the end of the previous term. Most importantly - and this is why a textbook alone cannot be enough - they will need to refer to them in a form with which they are very familiar. Thus an average pupil can instantly access the verb tables of the second part of a published course only if these are set out exactly like the verb tables in the first part of the course - which is rarely the case. However, when pupils are supported by the same reference sheet at the beginning of the new school year as they used regularly the term before, it is far easier for them to pick up from where they left off.

A crucial question for languages teachers is therefore: if I produced just one reference sheet of A4 paper to help my group move forward, what would be on it? We can, of course, provide a wide range of reference sheets over time, but focusing on just one enables us to concentrate on students’ most immediate linguistic needs. Once learners have committed the content of this sheet to memory, you can establish what they will need on a follow-up reference sheet. However, as any language teacher knows, it always takes the average group far longer to master linguistic structures than we might at first think - especially, for example, when it comes to switching confidently between past, present and future.

It is therfore important to stick to one sheet to begin with, in order to focus on what learners need most to progress. In the first year in which dictionaries were allowed in GCSE exams, for example, candidates of one exam board had to say that they liked films. Hundreds looked up “like” and produced the nonsensical “Je comme films”. This could have been avoided with a reference sheet in Year 7 which stressed the difference between j’, je, j’ai and j’aime: four words which, even today, too many learners see as interchangeable, despite the fact that all occur frequently in their first term of French. Such a reference sheet, of course, travels between home and school even where a department’s budget cannot stretch to loaning books to individuals. If stuck inside the front cover of pupils’ exercise books it can always be referred to quickly. Having such a sheet also enables us to give very specific advice on how pupils can improve. For example, “learn to write from memory the phrases on your Year 8 reference sheet” is far more focused than “improve your grammar” or “spend more time on learning homeworks”.

Tips for producing and using a pupil reference sheet:

* Focus on what learners need most to make progress. This is likely to mean the structures they need to extend their utterances. The most useful sheets I have produced to date include simple key structures, verbs in a three-tense timeline (I wentI goI am going to go) and question words. A sheet I plan to do for our sixth-form will include topic-related phrases in the subjunctive.

* Juxtapose carefully expressions which regularly confuse: “it is” and “there is”, for example, should be grouped together so the difference is more obvious. If in doubt about what to include, less is better. You can always add more later.

* Provide the English. This enables pupils to test themselves.

* If your ICT skills are good, wordprocessing makes it easy to also produce wall posters on key structures by enlarging the font to fit several expressions on to a sheet of A4, which you can then enlarge to an A3 photocopy.

* Glue the sheet into the front of students’ exercise books. A few well positioned spots of glue allow the sheet to be easily transferred to a pupil’s new book.

* Colour code future reference sheets so you can refer pupils to them quickly: la feuille rose, la feuille jaune.

* When you are happy with the content of a sheet, investigate the possibility of including it in your school’s pupil homework diary: some diary publishers allow schools to include extra pages of their own.

* Refer learners to the sheet as necessary. For instance, using the passe, present, futur sheet reproduced here enables learners to write and talk simply in three tenses on a range of topics such as leisure, school, holidays and home, with the addition of minimal extra topic-specific vocabulary: I played football last weekendyesterday lunchtimeat half termin the garden. It is the transferability of these expressions which reinforce them in learners’ minds. More adventurous learners can use the sheet as a springboard for producing a wider range of language by applying the clear verb patterns to new verbs.

* Include the learning of the reference sheet on your scheme of work.

Tres important sheet

This sheet, shown here on the far left, is for learners in their first term of French who have regularly encountered these expressions within textbook phrases and questions but who need to realise their individual meaning in order to stand a chance of manipulating known language to create their own. Follow-up sheets can contain phrases to extend utterances which incorporate familiar language (quand il fait beaumauvais; parce queparce que c’estparce qu’il y a); and question words in alphabetical order so that learners can quickly make sense of questions that they encounter.

Advantages of this format include:

* juxtaposition of key language which many learners treat as interchangeable until differences in meaning are made explicit (j’, je, j’ai, j’aime, je suis)

* coupling of easily confused English expressions (it is, there is)

* grouping of expressions in the order in which they are most likely to be encountered by learners

* spaces between groups of expressions to highlight connections between phrases within a group

* simple visual reinforcement of negative structures.

Passepresentfutur sheet

For learners working towards national curriculum level 6. This can be adapted for learners working towards level 5 by removing either the passe or futur columns. You can, of course, substitute verbs and expressions which your learners will most want to use.

Once learners no longer need the English translations, you can extend their manipulation of the tenses by including the nous form of each verb underneath the je form. This is good preparation for the next stage - showing learners how to use conventional verb tables.

Advantages of this verb format include:

* focusing on the first person singular to build confidence in switching tenses

* logical positioning of verbs in a timeline

* highlighting of the patterns which determine the tense

* reinforcement of those patterns through numerous aligned examples

* inclusion of phrase endings which allow learners to create meaningful sentences

* inclusion of questions to stimulate oral conversation.

Tony Elston is head of modern languages at Urmston Grammar School, Manchester. His own French key structure pupilreference sheets are published by Aide-memoire (Tel: 0161 374 9541). He is also author of the key stage 3 French course, ‘Genial’ (Oxford University Press)