Revision resources - esp MFL

[WellWoman]

Hi all. I am pretty sure I saw a thread recently recommending various websites for additional revision for specific subjects. I've searched and searched and can't find the damn thread.

Please can you help me nail a site or two for MFL vocabulary? I have two DC struggling with French.
Many thanks for suggestions. Best wishes to all trying to support and encourage revision, it's one of our hardest jobs as parents I think!

Memrise, quizlet, language-gym.com, SAM learning if they have it at their school. Head of MFL here.

Thanks Matchsticks. I think Memrise was mentioned on the thread I can't find.

DH and I are going to try to get our 2 to have short bursts - just a few minutes, but a coupe of times a day - of French only conversation with us on on the sort of topics they should know - home, holidays, what I do/like etc etc. Does that sound like a good idea to you? They seem to forget the vocab they learn within three or four weeks, after rote-learning it for tests. As they revise lots of the stuff they knew is just not there, it's not embedded from the work during the year. Any other ideas to make it "stick"?

oops, couple, not coupe - interesting slip there!

If you search on Google memrise and then the language and exam board, there will be a set of memrise vocabulary just for their own exam. Quizlet too, but my students prefer memrise.

I always say little and often to my pupils. Get them to make flashcards and you can test them. Post-its of key phrases in prominent places.

Just realised I've assumed your DC are doing exams. Anyway, still memrise! Little and often.

Thanks Matchsticks and DarkBlue. One is doing common entrance, the other is doing end of year exams for year 9/fourth form.
I have been researching some aspects of neuroscience for my own work and I can see that I need to find more ways to help the DC embed information. It's depressing that the time they spend cramming week by week for small tests is, largely, a waste - the techniques don't get the info into the longer term memory, only into the parts of the brain that hold it for a short time and then discard it.
Little and often, and use of interactive methods seems like the way forward. Post it notes on things is a good plan, will try to use colours to add to the layers of info too.

If you are interested in the neuroscience, have you seen the learning scientists website? There's some interesting blogs in their blog archive.

This might help with verbs, but could possibly be extended to other parts of speech.

www.learningscientists.org/blog/2016/3/9/7-1

This is the blog archive. There's a lot of reading but you might find something of interest.

www.learningscientists.org/archive

Duolingo might also be helpful for the MFL. It won't focus on only the vocabulary they need to know but it does used a form of spaced repetition which should help to get stuff into their long term memory.

I think you need to pay for the version of quizlet that has spaced repetition, but it's £20 a year. Memorise will do that for free.

Good vocab sites:
Memrise
Duolingo (app on phone)
Also Linguascope is good but you need a log in from school
Also past papers!
It's all about vocab now... one thing I have done for my year 11s is print out the vocab from the exam spec and break it down into topics; AQA has eight topic areas, each list of vocab fits on a page of A4 (roughly) in about 10pt; they can highlight words they know or words they don't, words on a specific theme, eg adjectives, family members, sports, holiday destinations, jobs, types of food, and learn them, do flashcards, make spider diagrams etc.

ah sorry I assumed GCSE! well the above is still useful I hope :)

Yes Clary, it IS useful. Thanks for adding your ideas. And thanks Rafals too, I will be looking at those sites.
Am very chuffed that people have taken the time to pass on ideas and insight.
Have a lovely evening all of you.
X

My kids use Memrise, Quizlet and they've just been introduced to something called Caboodle (?) Kaboodle? Apparently it's linked to the text books they use at school, and it's interactive in some way.

In the main though, mine make a lot of flashcards and sometimes vocab sheets. Mind maps / spider grams are recommended to by our school.

Was this the thread? www.mumsnet.com/Talk/secondary/2822454-Study-tips-and-websites-for-those-with-children-in-Y11

I think everything has been mentioned on this one though!