Understanding and using a range of tenses is a key element of a GCSE in languages. This activity is designed to improve recognition of different tenses and also confidence handling several different tenses at once. Challenge groups or pairs to race each other to correctly sort the French sentences about music using a Venn diagram. Ask pupils to make a very large copy of the Venn diagram on slide 2 of the PowerPoint presentation. This would ideally be A3 or bigger. They should cut out the sentences about music and then place them on the right section of the diagram depending on the tenses they can see within each of the short texts. To save learning time, you could prepare a Venn diagram and pack of sentences for each group in advance of the lesson. The teacher could circulate during this activity asking individuals questions about their choices e.g. how do you know that this text has both present and past tense verb forms? Explain why you have placed that text in that part of the Venn diagram. Pupils could make an individual copy of their group’s solution using the ‘answers’ sheet attached. Use slide 3 of the presentation to discuss/share answers.

Use this spreadsheet to work out grade boundaries for the AQA GCSE in any of the modern foreign languages. Select the data page and enter the grade boundaries of your choice (possibly from last year’s examination series), then use the spreadsheet to work out how your students are progressing. No one can know the boundaries for sure as they will vary from year to year depending on the ability profile of the national cohort and the perceived level of difficulty of the exam papers, but at least this will give an idea as to how individuals are doing in each of the skills. I’m not an expert at creating spreadsheets, so a big thank you goes to our school data manager for putting my ideas into a usable format.

Two adaptable banks of comments to save language teachers time in writing reports. 1) Spread sheet with ideas sorted into different categories for KS3-4 language learners. 2) Lists of possible curricular targets for KS3-4 pupils learning a language.