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Easy scaffolded translations for beginners

A while ago I produced a set of seven scaffolded translations from French into English for beginners. The format is as below, with a text in French, followed by a gapped translation into English. This sort of task might fit well towards the end of a sequence of work on the relevant topic. In the case below the topic would be pets. You could, of course, use the source text separately for other types of work such as reading aloud, true/false, questions in French and so on. As a follow-up task pupils could write their own paragraph based on the source material. You can find all seven texts on frenchteacher.net.

Here is the example:



Mon chien s’appelle Bouba. Il a cinq ans. C’est un labrador noir.  On l’a trouvé dans un refuge pour chiens.

Il est énorme et très mignon. Quand je rentre de l’école, il saute et veut jouer dans le jardin. Il adore courir, jouer à la balle et se baigner dans la rivière ou dans la mer.

Il mange beaucoup et en particulier il adore le chocolat et les gâteaux. Il adore monter en voiture avec la famille et faire des promenades à la campagne. Mon père le promène tous les jours.

Quand on a des invités à la maison il s’excite et aboie beaucoup. La nuit il couche dans la cuisine. Quand il va se coucher, il prend toujours un de mes chaussons pour dormir, il s'en sert comme d'un doudou.

C’est un chien vraiment adorable et très affectueux. Je l’adore.

And here is the gapped text:


My dog _______ Bouba. He is ____ years old. He’s a _____ Labrador. We found him in a dog ____________.

He is ____ and very _______. When I get ____ from school he jumps up and wants to _____ in the garden. He _____ running about, playing ____ and swimming in the _____ or the ___.

He ____a lot and in particular he loves ________ and _____. He loves going out in the ___ with the ______ and going for _____ in the __________. My father _____ him every ___.

When we ____  ______ in the house he gets _______ and barks _____. At _____ he sleeps in the ______. When he goes to ___ he takes one of my _______ and ____ it like a cuddly ___.

He’s a really _______  and very ___________ dog. I ____ him.

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