The Kate Languages Blog

Dictations are a great way of checking students' understanding of phonics in MFL lessons, but can be a bit dry if taught the same way each time.

In October 2024, I hosted a workshop all about how to teach dictations in a fun way, with lots of great ideas for how to "train" your students for the dic...

Teaching is a time-consuming job. We all know that, but there are ways to save time without cutting corners or compromising on quality.

One of the most important tools you need to have in your teacher toolkit is having some clear boundaries about what you really want to prioritise in your work. The...

If you've got folders full of amazing PowerPoints and worksheets for the old French, German and Spanish spec (2018), and are worrying that you just have to delete them all and start again from scratch... please don't!!

In this blog post, I want to give you five really easy ways of adapting your re...

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 fo...

Our first ever challenge "Sell your first online resource in a week" has been an incredible success! I am blown away by the amazing resources that the participants have created and truly honoured to be able to share them with you here.

The challenge took place over 5 days, during which time we met ...

How can we achieve *real* wellbeing in teaching? 

When I chatted to the wonderful Emily Armstrong about *real* teacher well-being on The Kate Languages Podcast, she had so many amazing tips and ideas, I thought I’d share them again with you here:

1. Focus on workload management - Wherever possible...

If you’ve ever wondered exactly how I create my resources and which digital tools I use, here is a short breakdown of 5 of my favourites!

1. Microsoft Word and PowerPoint - It may be a bit basic and simple, but I create my full workbooks on Microsoft Word and my lessons are on PowerPoint. I do thi...

Teaching is an incredibly stressful job, and burnout is far too common. I know this as I burnt out myself in 2016, and left the classroom for good in 2017. I have spent many years working on being aware of when I might be starting to feel burnt out again, and have tried and tested a number of differ...

This super short blog post is a summary of three great ways of introducing creativity into the classroom.

These were inspired by a previous conversation I had with Crista Hazell on the The Kate Languages podcast. You can find the full episode here - Creativity in MFL with Crista Hazell

1. Drama -...

In this blog post, I want to share three great questions you can ask your students to check for understanding.

I don’t know about you, but I used to think I could check for understanding by asking “any questions?” or (and I hate to admit this, but no one is perfect!) I would even just explain a tas...

Here are three really easy ways of incorporating culture into your everyday teaching...

1. Teach vocab that is relevant to the target language (TL) countries - not just Spain, France and Germany! 

You could teach South American animals in Spanish, typical food and drink from the TL countries, spor...

This blog post is inspired by a great conversation I had with Claire Wilson for the Kate Languages Podcast, all about taking a school trip abroad. 

Here are Claire's top 5 things to think about before you take a school trip abroad...

1. Risk assessments

Check/adapt existing risk assessments - you...