If you’ve read my previous blog, you’ll notice that I start (nearly) all of my classes with speaking and verb activities

Then I differentiate the activities we do next in class by level.

But what I’ve decided to do is to dramatically reduce the amount of work I set. After attending Gianfranco Conti’s session on EPI in November 2022, I realised that I was whizzing far too fast through the content in class.

This meant that I was doing far too much prep, creating far too much content and most importantly of all not allowing the learners enough time to absorb the language. They were seeing the vocab once and then doing a few exercises and not gaining enough from all of my hard work. 

So now I recycle the vocab constantly.

For example this half term we are working on an audio text that I’ve split into 2. The first couple of weeks we are working on the vocab in the first half of the recording - doing listening exercises, gap fill, missing words no gaps.

Then I’m recycling that into oral ping pong, pyramid translations, fast and furious exercises that we can do in class.

Then the last 3 weeks we are working on the second half of the audio recording. And finally in the last week we are working on the whole recording.

The recording is short and sweet - a maximum of 2-2.30 and works like a dream (it’s available along with all the worksheets in the Resource Centre)

I always set homework and we go through it at the start of the class. I don’t (usually) set homework that I need to mark, as I’m teaching adults they’re all motivated to do the homework and mark it themselves. 

What do I do if someone misses a week?

Easy! I upload the worksheets that we cover to my website and it is the learner’s responsibility to access it for themselves.

So that’s it - that’s how my French classes for adults are typically organised. 

If you are looking to set up/develop/consolidate your own languages business I have a range of ways I can help you - take a look here or drop me an email and we can chat