Over the last couple of weeks I have had a couple of surveys open to find out what kind of resources language teachers would like to see on Light Bulb Languages. I had one survey for primary and another for secondary. Today I have been collating the results so that I can see what I need to focus on from now on. I'm sharing the findings here and signposting some resources that are already on the website.
Primary teachers would like:
- resources linked to traditional songs
- resources for daily routine
- resources about school
- resources for telling the time: There are French time resources here and Spanish here.
- dictionary lessons
- listening resources: Have a look at the LiPS Listening Project
- short stories with activities
- reading comprehensions, fiction and non-fiction
- retrieval resources
- sentence builders: The majority of the units in the French scheme of work and all the unit in the Spanish schemes of work have sentence builders to accompany them.
- cover lessons that fit in with the commonly taught topics
- resources for younger learners in nursery and reception
I also asked if there were any special days or festivals that they would like resources for:
- European Day of Languages: I have recently published a pack of 40 activities for European Day of Languages.
- Christmas: There are Christmas activities for French, Spanish and German already on the website.
- Journée internationale de la Francophonie
- Easter: There are already some French Easter resources here and Spanish here.
- Mother's Day
- 14 juillet (Bastille Day): I have blogged about this but as yet have not created any resources
- Sporting events throughout the year
- Chandeleur
- Fête des Rois
- Día de los Muertos: There are some resources here already, but not many. I didn't teach it as both my schools were Church of England.
- International Mother Tongue Day
- Cultural events in Germany, Austria and Switzerland
- resources for Karneval
- resources for fiestas in Spanish America
In the "anything else" section, one teacher asked if I could arrange the resources in each unit in the French scheme of work in the same way as in the Spanish. Of course I will do that. By the way, all the scheme of work documents for the French scheme are now complete.
Now moving on to secondary.
As far as text books are concerned, there was a wide range of books being used, with some schools not using a text book:
- AQA GCSE
- Zoom
- Allez
- Studio
- Viva
- Mira
- Edexcel GCSE
- Stimmt
- Echt
- Kerboodle
- Dynamo
- Sentence Builders Trilogy
- Amici
Secondary teachers would like:
- Games
- Sentence builders: For Studio 1 there are resources here and sentence builders here.
There are also Studio 2 Rouge resources here, Studio 2 Rouge sentence builders here, Studio 3 Rouge sentence builders here and some Studio 3 Vert sentence builders here.
There are Viva 1 sentence builders here and resources for Mira 1 here. - GCSE exam support
- Listening resources
- Catchy but not childish songs: There are a number of songs in French and Spanish on the Light Bulb Languages YouTube channel.
- KS3/KS4 cover lessons with marking key
- News stories about the UK as reported in other countries where the languages are spoken
- speaking games
- cultural grammar activities
- GCSE German writing practice
- Phonics and phonics games
- puzzles suitable for KS3
- authentic resources for higher students to push them to grades 7/8/9
- reading comprehension activities
They would also like resources for these special days and festivals:
- non-European festivals such as Eid in Morocco
- St Martin's Day
- Poisson d'avril
- Tour de France: I have blogged about the Tour but haven't created any resources yet.
- European Day of Languages: I have recently published a pack of 40 activities for European Day of Languages.
- Christmas: There are Christmas activities for French, Spanish and German already on the website.
- Fête des Rois
- Día de los Muertos: There are some resources here already, but not many. I didn't teach it as both my schools were Church of England.
- Cinco de Mayo
- La Tomatina
- Feria de abril
- Journée internationale de la Francophonie
- sporting events
- Reyes: There are a number of Reyes resources in the Spanish Christmas resources.
- El Colacho
- fiestas from Spanish-speaking America
In the "anything else" section, one teachers asked for a list of different activities to use in the classroom. Have a look at Adaptable Activities for your Language Lessons.
Thank you very much to everyone who took the time to respond to the survey. Your responses have given me plenty to go on. There are some things that I already have on my list but some which I hadn't thought of.
Something else that I have planned is a major redesign of the website, which will take some time. A dilemma that I have currently is whether or not to keep the website free. I've now retired from the classroom, so my main source of income is no more. The website makes very little money, as all its income is from Google Ads. I'm also aware that some of the resources on the site are not mine. Any constructive comments about this or about resources are welcome.
Here's wishing you all the best of luck for the forthcoming academic year. I will try to support you as best I can.
