Advice and Ideas

Download free worksheets and classroom activities for our popular Talk courses, access The French Experience and Sueños teacher’s guides, or see what other great resources are available by selecting your language from the drop-down menu on the left-hand side.

A page of top teaching tips from other MFL teachers is available on this site on our Teaching Tips page. If you have a great tip you want to share, then just contact us on BBCActive.languages.admin@pearson.com. If you want to know what other teachers think of our courses and resources, have a look at our page of quotes from other teachers.

Founded in 2001, our Language Teachers’ Club now has around 7,500 members. Joining the Club is absolutely free and signs you up to our monthly newsletter, which is packed with the latest news from the world of languages, language events taking place around the country, the advance BBC Learning Zone schedule, the latest news from BBC Languages and BBC Active, a fabulous array of free online resources and … whatever you have asked us to include! Feedback and suggestions are welcome at all times, so why not join today and be part of a fun, friendly community, where you can have your say? Just go to the Teachers' Club page or email: BBCActive.languages.admin@pearson.com.

The BBC Languages website has a lot of supportive material to accompany many of our courses, in particular Talk, Sueños World Spanish, The French Experience, Italianissimo and Deutsch Plus. You can access all these from: http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/.

They have a section dedicated to language teachers at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/tutors/.

This features useful advice on using video in the classroom, and tips on teaching French, Italian, Spanish and German, along with useful links to clips, transcripts and exercises.

The BBC is also responsible for the BBC TWO Learning Zone, where they schedule language programmes in the early hours of the morning. You can buy Talk French and Talk Spanish on DVD from this website, and also the Excuse My French! BBC TV series with the accompanying course book on DVD from this site, but the other BBC TV programmes that accompany our courses are available to watch on the BBC Learning Zone. You can check the latest Learning Zone schedule at: www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/langtravel/, or receive the advance schedule by signing up to the Teachers’ Club newsletters.

You may also be interested in the extremely popular French and Spanish online courses, Ma France and Mi Vida Loca. You can access Ma France from www.bbc.co.uk/languages/french/mafrance/, and Mi Vida Loca from www.bbc.co.uk/languages/spanish/mividaloca/. You can also access their accompanying teachers’ notes from those links.

CILT, the National Centre for Languages, is the Government’s recognised centre of expertise on languages. Their mission is to promote a greater capability in languages amongst all sectors of the UK population. CILT is also the standards-setting body for languages, interpreting and translation and the recognised expert body for language and cultural skills for the UK-wide Skills for Business Network. They provide useful publications, support and advice in a range of specific areas. Their main website is: www.cilt.org.uk/about/index.htm.

CILT also hosts a community languages project called Our Languages, at: www.ourlanguages.org.uk/. This seeks to promote community languages in complementary and mainstream schools.

They also offer the Primary Languages site, a national gateway to advice, information, support and training for primary languages teaching and learning, at: www.primarylanguages.org.uk/.

For teachers in adult education, they offer Netword, which includes a useful ezine to keep you up to date with the latest news in AE and FE: www.cilt.org.uk/adulteducation/.

The Association for Language Learning (ALL) is the major subject association for those involved in teaching all foreign languages at all levels. They have extremely active regional branches, publish a range of language-specific journals and the Languages Today magazine, and also host one of the major events in the languages calendar: Language World. You can find out more at: www.all-languages.org.uk/.

The Independent Schools’ Modern Languages Association (ISMLA) exists to provide a forum for Modern Languages teachers in independent secondary schools to meet, share ideas and inform themselves about and contribute to developments in Modern Languages teaching. You can read more about them at: www.ismla.co.uk/.

Routes Into Languages was established to encourage the take-up of language courses in England. Their website offers resources, events and more besides: www.routesintolanguages.ac.uk/.

Links Into Languages is a government-funded programme to establish a network of regional support centres for Languages across all regions of England. It aims to build a robust and responsive infrastructure to bring together teachers, teaching assistants, advisers, trainees, school leaders and stakeholders across all school sectors. It will enable them to benefit from high-quality professional development, to access up-to-date information and advice, to obtain support for networking, face-to-face and online, and to gain assistance and mentoring in problem-solving and sharing good practice: www.linksintolanguages.ac.uk/.

The Subject Centre for Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies (LLAS) is a publicly funded service, providing UK-wide support and services for higher education in languages, linguistics and area studies. They run a number of useful events across these subjects: www.llas.ac.uk/.

The Specialist Schools and Academies Trust (SSAT) has a languages specialism strand, as well as several language-specific networks. You do not have to be a specialist school to take advantage of some of the excellent resources they have on offer, but you will need to sign up to their website first: www.specialistschools.org.uk.

Designed to make the most of BBC video on your whiteboard, our Whiteboard Active CD-ROMs offer brilliant opportunities for interactive lessons for your Primary language teaching. Primary French is Fun 1: Let’s Begin and Primary French is Fun 2: Let’s Continue make learning French fun all the way through Key Stage 2. Both CD-ROMs come with a helpful and comprehensive teacher’s book that includes suggested routes through the material, photocopiable worksheets and a chart to show you how the pack fits in with the Framework for Languages. Perfect for specialists and non-specialists alike, Primary French is Fun offers useful advice and tips at every stage, while enabling you to bring your lessons to life through the power of BBC video.

Colourful pupil books and photocopiable activity books are also available to accompany level one.

You can read more and request a demonstration disc by clicking on ‘Modern Foreign Language' at: www.whiteboardactive.com/product-info.html.

BBC Active Broadcast Learning handles all requests for the sale and licensing of institutional, educational rights to language programmes and series broadcast on the BBC. Please contact bbcactive.bbcstudies@pearson.com if you wish to obtain DVD copies of, or a licence for, using such material in the classroom or in online educational environments.

if you require footage or clips of BBC broadcast programmes for commercial use, please contact BBC Motion Gallery at www.bbcmotiongallery.com.

BBC Active is not responsible for and has no liability in relation to the content of any third-party website nor does it endorse any third party website in any way.