In an ideal world, every teacher would be making their own unique teaching resources, even down to adorning the walls with handcrafted posters. But, we know teaching doesn’t always go that smoothly. No matter how much you would like to, between planning lessons and marking tests, you simply don’t have time to always put as much heart and soul into your resources as you would like. C’est la vie.
Luckily the internet is full of fantastic French teaching resources, most of them free, to take some of the legwork out of preparing for lessons. We’ve rounded up eight of the best free resources you can find online for teaching French to children.
1. Lightbulb Languages
Lightbulb Languages is home to a huge library of resources for teaching from primary school all the way up to A-Level in the UK French curriculum. This website includes downloadable lesson plans and breakdowns of the French teaching framework for each academic level, which helps to guide teachers through the progression of long-term planning and strategy.
In addition to lesson plans, teachers have access to audio files such as songs, listening activities as well as PowerPoint presentations. The library of Podcasts on the website takes adults and teachers through lessons to improve their own French to assist them in teaching lessons to students.
The site caters to French, German, Italian, Latin, and Spanish with similar MFL teaching resources.
2. Primary Resources
The website contains an extensive amount of downloadable resources sorted by different topics such as ‘animals’, ‘colours’, and ‘sports.’ Meaning you can quickly find activities and put together a lesson plan based on the topic you will be teaching. Most resources are PowerPoint presentations, or Word/PDF documents that can be printed out as worksheets.
The site is also host to a selection of preexisting lesson plans that can be used whole or divided up into separate activities to fit your lesson.
Springboard Supplies Animal Snap
3. Institute Francais
The Institut français du Royaume-Uni comprises a language centre, cinema and children’s library. Its website is host to a huge digital library of over 25,000 free public access documents to assist with the learning and teaching of French.
On the Culturethèque sister website, the Primary French Project website, both accessible on the link, teachers for Primary school and secondary school can find worksheets, videos and documentaries with subtitles, e-books and more.
4. Teaching Ideas
The Teaching Ideas website is sorted by subject and covers the complete primary school curriculum and more, with pages on classroom management, school clubs and time-fillers. Here teachers can find printables like decorations for the classroom walls and whiteboard as well as activity sheets for teaching French in primary schools. Resources are free to download and print out.
Decorating the classroom in french words and images provides a consistent reminder of things that students have learned and can be even more useful when you incorporate a game that encourages them to look around the classroom, like our Revealing France Photopack which includes a CD and picture cards with notes on the back of each about French life.
5. French Games
For teachers in need of French teaching resources KS2 activities that children can get on with on their own or at home, French Games is a really useful website. Host to lessons, games, and tests the website is laid out in a fun roadmap theme that children find easy to follow and encouraging to explore on their own.
Free computer games are an excellent way to get older children to engage with a task and develop their understanding of certain concepts by inspiring them to problem solve.
6. Text to Speech
Perfect for understanding and practising the pronunciation of French words and sentences, this website is perfect for individual study on the computer or group learning where phrases can be played back to the class. Simple enough, students or teachers only need to type in a sentence and click ‘Say it’ to hear the words in a french voice. Students can change the gender and speed of the voice to make learning easier.
Text to Speech isn’t just useful for learning french, also supporting those looking for German, Italian, or Spanish teaching resources and many more. Learning multiple languages at once can be tricky at first so this is a good opportunity to help children compare phrases or words in different languages and differentiate them. Our ZooBooKoo Multiplication Tables cube offers a similar interactive method of learning and comparing multiple languages at once.
Springboard Supplies ZooBooKoo Multiplication Tables Cube
7. BBC Bitesize for KS2
The BBC revision site Bitesize is a reliable resource that students find easy to follow. French KS2 topics are broken down into easy-to-digest chunks with videos, songs, and games designed to keep children interested in the topic at hand. Bitesize is appropriate for ages four to 14 and is useful in supporting lessons as homework or test revision.
8. French websites index for UK teachers
If you run out of resource websites to use for teaching ideas (although hopefully that never happens!) turn to this neat little website. Here you can find a long index of websites that are in any way relevant to learning french geared at learners of any level.
In addition to useful links, this website boasts an enormous catalogue of resources on everything to do with France and French culture.
Access to good quality resources can help to reduce the amount of time you spend on PowerPoint or on Word for a lesson that feels like it’s over in a flash in comparison. Less stress in the classroom means that you can focus on being a skilled teacher, and have a bit more free time too.
