I started sharing and selling on French resources for teachers back in 2015 on tes.com and tpt.com. At first it was just a few Power Points and worksheets, but the obsession quickly spiralled out of control and soon enough I was dreaming about software, splurging on clip art and the notes section of my iPhone was a garbled mess of middle-of-the-night inspiration for new products. I was working under a psuedonym because I was quite shy and I wanted something memorable so I plumped for Betsy Belle. Once I started getting some really positive feedback and my resource bank grew, I knew I was going to eventually out grow Betsy Belle and I’m pleased to announce that time has come!
Fast forward to 2020 and I am re-branding. Welcome to……. The French Zone. I want the website to be a place where busy teachers can come to download free and paid resources. I want them to feel they can rely on the quality and consistency of these resources. Most of my resources are introductions to topics. I have done this because I found through experience that when I needed to get my hands on something to introduce new language it was frustrating to scroll through pages of results and end up downloading something of poor quality. My PowerPoints follow a reliable structure- introduce the language, practise the language through lots of games, develop through listening, speaking, reading and writing tasks. There are plenty of other types of resources available too- from board games to comprehensions, writing mats to Google docs.
A bit about me…
I am in 37, I live in the North West of England with my husband and two kids. I have taught French and Spanish for about 15 years- 11 in Secondary and 4 in Primary. I love to use technology in my language lessons to create an exciting and memorable learning experience for pupils (I love a green screen and I could talk all day long about the chatterpix app!). I believe that language learning is at its most powerful when students feel comfortable and safe- I make it a priority that my students feel they can take risks and make mistakes. I love that I now have virtual teaching buddies up and down the country and in the US- the global staff room has certainly inspired me to try new things and been a great source of support.
Things I love: baked camembert; spring daffodils; second-hand French dictionaries; rioja, 1930s house renovation Insta accounts. And my family (of course). They are my world!
Things I love at work: freshly sharpened HB pencils; an IWB with all 4 pens still intact and… the last book on the pile of marking- there is no greater feeling.
I don’t know where this language learning platform will take me. For now it is a bank of free and paid resources. In the future I hope to also offer it to schools on an annual subscription basis. If you want to be in the loop for the latest developments, subscribe to the newsletter using the bar below.
Michelle.
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