Septembre : La rentrée!
Septembre : La rentrée!
September 2026 marks the first return to school for staff following a two-year journey on a new specification, with classes now in full swing in Year 12. Reflecting on that two-year journey, there are many moments where the teaching felt similar to years gone by. However, there were definitely new moments shared with all year groups as we tried out new ways of delivering dictation, phonetics and reading-aloud tasks to our classes.
As September ends and we approach a new month, good habits are never too late to establish. Students need to build key skills:
- Vocabulary recall
- Accurate pronunciation
- Listening comprehension
- Grammar knowledge
- Translation skills
- Spontaneous speaking
- Extended writing
- Confidence with unfamiliar questions
These skills cannot realistically be built in the final few weeks before the exams.
Translation
For translation activities, students need to consider the verb and its ending, the time frame and therefore the tense of a sentence, and the gender agreements too.
Reading Aloud
Reading aloud can be effective with others who will listen, as it mimics the exam where the reading will be completed and recorded with their class teacher. Top tips to consider: which letters are silent, and the sound changes when a word is plural. Just reading aloud for five minutes and noting words you struggle with can help enormously.
In the internet age there are many websites with a text-to-speech facility — these are useful for getting further ideas on how to sound out individual words or sentences.
Official Exam Resources
For more exam tips, past papers and resources, visit the official examination websites:
