How to exploit one text for different skills [2-min read]

In this blog post I wanted to share with you one of my biggest tips for planning as an MFL teacher - how to exploit one text for different skills.

Essentially, exploiting one text is about saving you tons of time as a busy teacher, as you don't need to scrabble around looking for different texts for your phonics, listening, dictation, reading, translation, speaking and writing tasks. Just choose one really good quality text (may I recommend some excellent model answers in my own writing workbooks?!) and exploit it in lots of different ways. This also ensures that students really understand the text in depth and fully grasp the key vocabulary, grammar and SSCs as they progress through the lesson.

Here are three ways of exploiting one text in an MFL lesson:

1. Start from the end and work backwards. Think about what you want students to produce - speaking and/or writing and work from there. Use a writing or speaking model answer as your “one text”. 
2. Include a phonics focus based on your one text/model answer. Look at the text and choose a phonics focus based on the key vocabulary or grammar point. Introduce and practise this phonics focus as an integral part of the lesson.
3. Use one text for listening, reading and translation. Start with a listening activity, do a dictation, use the transcript for a reading task and then a translation into English. Then use the text as a model answer for a speaking and/or writing activity. 

If you’d like to learn more about exploiting one text, why not listen to my podcast episode on the subject here. Or if you’d like to dive even deeper into exploiting one text, my two hour workshop is available in my CPD bundle here.