GCSE French Writing Focus - sample essays for controlled assessments & coursework

Scroll down for a link to download a completely free Windows desktop program with lots of interactive exercises and worksheets based on a sample GCSE French essay on the topic of "A bad school day".

The resource can be used with interactive whiteboards or with individual computers (Windows only) and can be installed on the school network.

The downloaded is actually a non-time-limited demo of a full resource containing 16 essays, with free access to 1 of those 16 essays.

(A registration key is required to access the other 15 essays and associated resources.)

The 16 essays cover a range of topics and recycle language and structures which students can use in their own writing. Each essay contains a range of tenses and focuses on structures which should help students to get higher grades in their writing.

Each essay is split into 3 or 4 smaller parts / paragraphs so that you and your students can work on smaller chunks of text, as well as on the full essay. In the screen image above, you can see that the first three title links are to parts 1 to 3 of the first essay (1.1, 1.2 & 1.3), and the fourth title link (1) is to the full essay for "A bad school day".

Each of the links (69 in total) takes you to a new page with further links to 34 interactive exercises, which are listed in roughly ascending order of difficulty, with a mixture of whole-text and vocabulary activities for variety. (See the screenshot below.) The final 2 links for each title (numbers 35 & 36) provide access to further games and to a range of worksheets.

The 16 essays are broken down as follows.

(1) A bad school day:

Part 1: "A good start to the day?"
Part 2: "Late!"
Part 3: "Trouble at school..."
The full essay

(2) A bad day out

Part 1: "The day starts well."
Part 2: "Trouble on the journey."
Part 3: "Breakdown." 
The full essay

(3) A famous person: David Beckham

Part 1: "Introducing Beckham."
Part 2: "The football career."
Part 3: "Beckham now."
The full essay

(4) A famous person: Beyoncé

Part 1: "Introducing Beyoncé."
Part 2: "The early years."
Part 3: "The singing career."
Part 4: "Beyoncé now."
The full essay

(5) Free time (sport)

Part 1: "Playing football."
Part 2: "Other than sport..."
Part 3: "Last weekend."
The full essay

(6) Free time (no sport)

Part 1: "Spending time with friends."
Part 2: "At home."
Part 3: "Next weekend."
The full essay

(7) A holiday abroad

Part 1: "Where I went on holiday."
Part 2: "The journey."
Part 3: "What I did on holiday."
Part 4: "Next year's holiday."
The full essay

(8) A holiday in the UK

Part 1: "Not my usual holiday."
Part 2: "The journey."
Part 3: "What it was like & what I did."
Part 4: "Looking ahead to next year."
The full essay

(9) My school (negative)

Part 1: "Introducing my school."
Part 2: "The school rules."
Part 3: "School uniform & subjects."
Part 4: "My ideal school."
The full essay

(10) My school (positive)

Part 1: "Introducing my school."
Part 2: "School rules and uniform."
Part 3: "School subjects."
Part 4: "My ideal school."
The full essay

(11) My town

Part 1: "What I like about my town."
Part 2: "It all changes at night..."
Part 3: "Comparison with another town (past)."
The full essay

(12) Small town vs. city

Part 1: "Introducing my town."
Part 2: "Pros and cons of a small town."
Part 3: "Comparison with a visit to a city."
The full essay

(13) Work: past & future

Part 1: "The part-time job I used to have."
Part 2: "Future jobs I've considered."
Part 3: "Unsure about the future."
The full essay

(14) Work: present / past / future

Part 1: "My part-time job."
Part 2: "My work experience."
Part 3: "Ideas for the future."
The full essay

(15) At the cinema

Part 1: "Why I like the cinema."
Part 2: "My last cinema visit."
Part 3: "The story of the film: Avatar."
The full essay

(16) Problem page (healthy living)

Part 1: "Outlining the problem."
Part 2: "How things have changed."
Part 3: "What to do next?"
The full essay

As mentioned above, the download works as a demo, with one essay enabled. (One essay means parts 1-3 and the full essay, so 4 title links, each with 34 interactive exercises and about 20 worksheets). Once registered, the other 15 essays are made available. 

Go to http://www.mdlsoft.co.uk/orderform.htm#gcsefrwr for more information about registering.

Download options:

1) Download a single exe installer

This is a single exe file. Choose to run it, or save it to your computer and run it once it is downloaded. This is ideal if you want to install it on your own computer, or on several individual computers, or directly to a network server (and you have permissions to do this).
The program is installed and can be accessed via the Start menu (on the installation machine) at:
Start > Programs > TaskMagic GCSE French Writing

2) Download a zipped msi installer

This allows you to install across a network. Please extract the contents of the zip file before attempting to install. See also the "Installation info.txt" file inside the zip folder. This is really the option for network managers.
The program is installed and can be accessed via the Start menu at:
Start > Programs > TaskMagic GCSE French Writing

3) Download the program as a zip file, with no installation

This option does NOT install anything to your computer. Simply follow the instructions below to run the program. No start menu link is created, and the program can be accessed each time by running the exe file in the location to which you have extracted the files.

a). Click on the link, choose "Save", and decide where to save the zip file.
b). Once it is downloaded "Open" the file. (If you are asked to confirm this, choose "Allow")
c). Then "Extract All the Files". Make sure the box to "Show extracted files" is ticked. This will make sure that the folder will open once the files are extracted.
d). Run the file TMFrGCSEWriting.exe (which is the one with the yellow smiley face, if you can't see file extensions).
You can move these files to wherever you like, but keep the 3 elements (TMFrGCSEWriting.exe, TMFrGCSEWriting.exe.manifest, filesetc) together in the same folder.

That's it for now... I'd love to read your feedback :0)

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7 responses
Dear Martin,

I work in a school which has bought the Taskmagic 3. Unfortunately, I can't get hold of the code.

My school Is:
Stopsley High School
St Thomas' Road
Thanks

Hi Angelo,

If you send me an email (using the email link on the TaskMagic website at http://www.mdlsoft.co.uk/contact.htm) I'll email you details of your TaskMagic3 registration code. Please note however that this code will not work for the GCSE French resource, as this is a separate resource requiring a separate registration code.

Any chance for a mac version?
Not of this, no. I'm afraid the work involved wouldn't make it worthwhile.
Hi Martin, is the key needed the same key as for TM3? because everytime I try to register with that key it would not let me saying that either it is wrong or that you're not logged on the net. But this is the key I entered for TM3 and it worked. Or do I need something completely different??
Hi Monna. The registration key for the GCSE French writing tool is a different one. It's a separate product available to those with TaskMagic3 and to those who don't have it, although the prices charged for those with TaskMagic3 are lower. See [url]http://www.mdlsoft.co.uk/orderform.htm#gcsefrwr[/url]

However, anyone can access the first essay by clicking on the "Demo" button.

nice