Blog

Spanish Christmas freebie – corrected

Posted on by Kate Jones

As I pride myself on having top-quality resources, and it was pointed out to me that there were a few mistakes on the Spanish Christmas freebie, I have now added a corrected version to the files available for download here.

However, if you’ve already ordered the files, you won’t automatically have access to the new corrected version. So, if you have already gone through the process of putting your details into PayPal, etc and downloaded the files and don’t feel like doing it all over again but would really like a (hopefully this time) perfect version, fear not! Here is the corrected file, available for quick and easy download:

Prioritising workload – even when you’re lacking motivation!

Posted on by Kate Jones

I filmed this earlier on a little walk when I was trying to wake myself up and get some motivation. Just to prove I’m not some ridiculously sunny, annoyingly positive person all the time! I have to work on it every day, just like most people, especially when it’s cold and dark outside all the time!

Continue reading “Prioritising workload – even when you’re lacking motivation!” →

Guess Who sports

Practising sports vocab with Guess Who?

Posted on by Kate Jones

On the Facebook group ‘Global Innovative Language Teachers’, someone recently posted a link to this brilliant set of ‘extra’ Guess Who characters. In fact, it’s so brilliant that I’m using it with the primary school-aged children I teach this week and I thought I’d write a quick blog post about how I’m using the game to practise sports vocab and physical descriptions.

Continue reading “Practising sports vocab with Guess Who?” →

Teacher Positivity Planner Cover

Teacher Positivity Planner – PDFs

Posted on by Kate Jones

My Teacher Positivity Planner is now available as downloadable PDF files on this website and Etsy!

The Teacher Positivity Planner is a brand new way of organising your working day and focusing on your wellbeing at the same time.

The weekly overview includes sections to record gratitude, priorities, weekly self-care and brilliant things that have happened that week. The day pages have a priorities section, morning and evening boxes and a daily reflection box.

Continue reading “Teacher Positivity Planner – PDFs” →

katelanguages memrise

Practise Key Stage 3 vocabulary on memrise.com!

Posted on by Kate Jones

I have created 3 new courses on memrise to accompany my Key Stage 3 vocabulary and grammar booklets. They currently include the topics of ‘me, my family and friends’, ‘technology and free time’, and ‘where I live’. I’ll keep adding to them as I write and publish more Key Stage 3 booklets.

The French course is available here, the German one is here and the Spanish one is here.

I have also put a number of GCSE and A Level (French) courses on memrise – just look through my profile to find the best ones for your language and level!

Click here for free samples of the vocabulary and grammar books:

Happy vocab learning!

katelanguages French Key Stage 3 booklet

Katelanguages resources in use

Posted on by Kate Jones

I get so much lovely feedback from teachers about how they’re using my resources with their classes, so I thought I’d share with you some ideas and photos of how one fabulous teacher is using the French Key Stage 3 resources with her Year 7s.

katelanguages French resources

She has printed off the pages that relate to the vocabulary that her class is learning and the students have stuck the sheets into their exercise books. I think this is a great way of working through the booklets, as it breaks the work down into manageable chunks for the children.

Continue reading “Katelanguages resources in use” →

Great games for language learning

Posted on by Kate Jones

I love playing games in language lessons – it’s a great way to engage students and make the learning fun. However, it’s important to ensure that the games exploit key vocabulary and grammar as much as possible. With that in mind, here are my 5 favourite minumum-prep, maximum-fun games to play in the language classroom.

Continue reading “Great games for language learning” →

Creating and selling teaching resources

A guide to creating and selling teaching resources

Posted on by Kate Jones

Why write and sell resources?

As well as being a private tutor of French, German and Spanish, I also write and sell teaching resources for the new MFL GCSEs and Key Stage 3 languages. It all started as an idea to help teachers understand and prepare their students for the new style of questions in the revamped 9-1 GCSEs. I hoped to make a bit of extra income on the side of my tutoring business, but in just over a year, it has become my main source of income and the thing I spend around 80% of my working time on.

I currently share and sell my teaching resources on tes.com and on this website.

Continue reading “A guide to creating and selling teaching resources” →

Les animaux – a Year 7 lesson plan with new GCSE-style questions

Posted on by Kate Jones

It is becoming increasingly clear that to ensure success at GCSE, we need to embed GCSE-style activities into lessons from the start. I don’t believe that this has to be too stressful or boring, however, which is why I’m creating a series of workbooks for Key Stage 3 learners of French, German and Spanish that include new GCSE-style reading, translation, writing and speaking tasks.

The following lesson plan incorporates some of the tasks from my French ‘me, my family and friends’ workbook, mixed with games and other activities that I have always made an integral part of my Key Stage 3 lessons. I hope that the ideas given here will prove useful for other teachers who are looking for ways of including GCSE-style tasks into Key Stage 3 lessons in an engaging way.

Continue reading “Les animaux – a Year 7 lesson plan with new GCSE-style questions” →