MAJORITE OPPRIMEE, un film d'Eléonore Pourriat (2010) YouTube video by Eleonore

Could be worth sharing with A-level French students. The new Sacha Baron-Cohen and Rosamund Pike movie is a descendant. youtu.be/kpfaza-Mw4I?...

Off to Brighton Beach today from Melbourne city centre. Fish and chips and a beer would be nice. Fine Autumn weather.

After Haileybury in Melbourne, my next session will be with languages trainees at the University of Sydney in 23rd April. Topic: exploiting sentence builders. Haileybury was fun. It’s quite a school (or schools, rather).

Subscription sites | frenchteacher.net Checked April 2026 Here are some good subscription sites for French teachers and adult learners. Prices were accurate in January 2023. Let me know of any I have missed. Frenchteacher.net is my own…

I have added Lingoletics to my list of subscription sites for French teachers. www.frenchteacher.net/links/subscr...

Stanley Wang and Steve

Training session with staff at Haileybury.

A pleasure to present today to teachers at Haileybury, Melbourne. Thanks to Stanley Wang for inviting me.

My new book is out! I'm delighted to let you know that that my new book Thinking About Language Teaching (Volume 2) is now out and available as a paperback or ...

From January. 300 pages of reflections, classroom pedagogy and some theory. frenchteachernet.blogspot.com/2026/01/my-n...

A lot of views for this one. frenchteachernet.blogspot.com/2026/02/cold...

From Routine to Ruin? A Critical Analysis of Do-Now Tasks in the Light of Memory Research Introduction Let’s start with a bit of honesty, because otherwise this becomes another polite CPD piece that changes nothing… do-now tasks are everywhere, they look good, they tick boxes but …

Gianfranco is on to something here. gianfrancoconti.com/2026/04/19/f...

Looks like I was singing at the recent NSWFCLS Conference at the University of Sydney.

An attempt to more clearly define classroom activities in language learning. www.oasis-database.org/details/u444...

Batty.

My latest post. Translate the resource into any language. frenchteachernet.blogspot.com/2026/04/an-i...

Internalise was a word often used in the past before discussions about the interface and brain imaging. It seems so intuitive. I doubt if this argument is over.

The word internalise to me still implies explicit becoming implicit. I don’t know the answer to this. It seems unlikely to me that, just because there are different brain areas involved, explicit knowledge can’t become implicit, ie be ‘internalised’.

Why your performance depends on the day (not just your ability)

New study: the same person performs differently from day to day, and it’s linked to cognitive “sharpness”.

What does that mean for testing?
👉 wp.me/p2nWPo-5Ra

Me and Elspeth in front of the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

Looking forward to speaking tomorrow at NSW Federation of Community Language Schools. With my OH Prof Elspeth Jones.

I was definitely in the ‘opportunistic’ camp (as Robert Woore puts it). Lots of reading while listening, reading aloud and occasional focused practice. I was working with above average aptitude pupils.

I can’t deny I am a little proud and happy that my blog has just surpassed 4 million views. When I retired from the classroom I did not foresee how much I would remain interested in sharing language teaching theory and practice.

How do you teach adjectives in French? Or other inflectional languages? frenchteachernet.blogspot.com/2026/04/teac...

By that I mean that if phonics partly leads syllabus design, it compromises communication as a priority. One reason NCELP lessons were weak, I believe.

Of course sound-spelling relationships have always been taught ‘opportunistically’ by many teachers. NCELP pushed a more systematic approach. That creates pedagogical problems in my view.

Qu'est-ce que le taux de privation matérielle, en hausse en France ?

En France, le "taux de privation matérielle" est en hausse. De quoi parle-t-on ? ➡️ https://l.franceinter.fr/tps

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Sperm whales’ communication closely parallels human language, study finds Analysis shows whales’ coda vocalizations are ‘highly complex’ and remarkably similar to our own

Interesting. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

This pair game was all the rage a few years ago. Is it still a thing? frenchteachernet.blogspot.com/2017/12/one-...

What Schools Look for in MFL Teacher Interviews This one for the ECTs and jobhunters. If you are looking for Head of Department or Second in Department roles this is not the post for you (I can however recommend searching certain MFL facebook gr…

This is good. Comprehensive and based on experience. everydaymfl.com/2026/04/13/w...

Have We Overdone Retrieval Practice? A Timely Recalibration for Language Teachers For the past decade or so, retrieval practice has enjoyed near-mythical status in education circles, often presented, somewhat uncriticallas y, a universal good: test more, retrieve more, and learn…

Worth a read, I think. gianfrancoconti.com/2026/04/14/h...

Our book Breaking the Sound Barrier: Teaching Language Learners How to Listen gets into this in great detail.

One useful takeaway is that we can ask students what is going on their heads as they listen. Another is we usually ‘do’ listening rather than ‘teach’ it.

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