Sunday 29 August 2010

AS level resources

I've been happily sitting here for the last couple of days putting together templates for each A level examination board's different skill areas so that it will be quick and easy to put together practice material for each skill area.  A level French resources for AS will be available from the middle of September on www.alevelfrench.com covering all skill areas.  The sample material will cover education and future careers and my collaboratrice and I are having great fun putting it together, learning many new skills along the way.   I have to say that from being a hater of using MS Word I am now really appreciating the things it does-it does seem to be a bit more user friendly than it used to be although I've realized that to get the configuration on a page I really want I do need to create tables which helps the layout stay together.  Any other way of doing it and I'm going to need to do a week's course I'm afraid.

I'm certainly glad I chose the Silence de la Mer to do resources based on a colleague's request.  There seems to be a lot of interest in it-I guess I hadn't seen it as a subtle love story the first time round so when you take the perspective on it it gets a whole lot more interesting.

I'm also glad I decided to do Le Blé en Herbe by Colette as the tension within it is so colourfully depicted despite the sometimes annoying omniscient narrator moralizing in the background.   

The reason I would be increasingly promoting the literary texts is that reading seems to be becoming more prominent than writing, particularly in the WJEC spec.   Without a background of developing deductive reading skills in a sustained way I would think a student may be disadvantaged.  It doesn't seem the same to me somehow to be reading around the life of film maker or whatever.   Then I am a confirmed book worm and am totally biased. 

The series on literature of the 20th century on BBC has been very interesting putting a range of the most popular authors into context.  It was good to see people like William Goulding of Lord of the Flies and Doris Lessing of the Golden Notebook in conversation.

Tuesday 24 August 2010

Launch of A level French.com

Well it's been a long haul but www.alevelfrench.com is finally launching.  It will be a whimper more than a bang as the 575 letters gradually hit the French teachers' pigeon holes.   I originally thought two or three books would get done to go out to the market but with Natalie's help and encouragement this has climbed to eight which gives a wide choice.  Resources to enable the average student to tackle A level French are few and far between and I hope that the materials will help teachers give their classes activities which will build language capability at the same time as enjoying the novel.

With the decline in both A level and GCSE entries alevelfrench.com has the mission of trying to arrest the decline in the study of French.  If the site is successful we will move onto other languages which are in just as parlous a state.  The shame is that schools are letting very able kids get away with not studying a language; no wonder that French, German or Spanish young people are being hired above our own kids who are being deprived of the change of getting to a good standard in an MFL.

So whether the A level French resources on this site are going to make a difference or not will soon be decided.  Well if literature doesn't do it then maybe the AS materials will!

Wednesday 4 August 2010

Colette-le blé en herbe

Well  how many people are going to be doing Le Blé en Herbe next year?  More I hope if they find the A level French literature resources on www.alevelfrench.com.   By watching a film we look at the target language culture; by reading the literature we literally go inside that culture, into the minds of the protagonists.

What is it like to venture into the mind of middle class teenagers in the 1920's?  Are they so very different to young people of today?  In my opinion the emotions of the young people with all their interpersonal uncertainties are very similar;  however the world around them is on the cusp of change-women are coming to realize that blokes are not the paragons their mothers make them out to be.  It's not full on 70's or 80's feminism but it's on the march.

So is the book worthy of study?  There's lots to discover in it for sure and the exercises in www.alevelfrench.com will help in this direction.  In some ways it's good that there is no film to ruin the book also!    French literature is one of the cultural wonders of the world and all A level students should be doing some in my opinion.   This book is as good a start as any.