Cover lesson

A language lesson anyone can lead

Leave this in the folder. It runs in 30 to 45 minutes and the adult at the front does not need a word of the target language.

Leave this in the folder. A substitute who speaks none of the target language can run it cold, in 30 to 45 minutes, from one page copied for each pair. The app speaks each phrase and its translation, and shows an example sentence on screen, so the adult at the front never has to model the language or mark anything as right or wrong.

Before the bell (2 minutes)

Print one page per pair: three columns headed Phrase, What it means, Where you’d say it. That is the whole prep. There is no account and no sign-up, so nobody hands out logins and nobody gets locked out.

Run it

1. Open and pick (5 min). Students who have Vocabcord open it and set the language pair and CEFR level the regular teacher left on the board. Anyone without it installs it free and takes the starter content: a 50-phrase preview for Spanish, French and Polish A1, or the A1 “Greetings & Essentials” theme for German, Italian and Portuguese. Skip the charger automation for this lesson: phrases play straight from the app. That automation is the one-time setup a learner wires at home, a Shortcuts automation on iPhone, so phrases start playing on their own at the charger.
2. Harvest six (7 min). Each pair plays the daily words and browses the level, then writes six phrases into column one and the translation into column two. The app carries the translation, so the cover teacher just circulates and counts to six.
3. Ears only (8 min). Screens face down. One student plays a phrase; the partner writes what they heard. Turn the page over and compare against the spelling already written in column one. Swap. Column one settles every argument.
4. Put it somewhere (10 min). Every phrase shows an example sentence on screen. Pairs read theirs aloud, then fill column three with the situation it belongs to and act one out for 20 seconds.
5. Teach it across (8 min). Pairs join into fours. Each pair teaches two phrases to the other pair, playing the audio twice and then covering the screen. Time it and rotate once.
6. Exit page (5 min). On the back, each student writes three phrases from memory with meanings. Collect the pages for the regular teacher. That stack is the record of the lesson.

If the students have no devices

Run every round from one phone at the front, the substitute’s own. Install it in the corridor, take the free A1 content, and play each phrase twice while the room writes. Steps 3 to 6 run with the class as one team, the audio coming from the front and the page on the visualiser or copied onto the board. For step 5, send one pair at a time to the front phone to play the two phrases they are teaching.

If the wifi is down

Installing needs a connection, so get the app onto the front phone before the lesson if you can, then run the no-devices version from it. If nothing can play at all, run the page dry: dictate six phrases from the regular teacher’s list, have pairs write how they think each one sounds, seal the guesses in the page, and check them against the audio next lesson. Checking them still does not need the substitute to speak the language.

The student page

Print one per pair. Three columns is the whole worksheet.

On the back: write three phrases from memory, with meanings. Hand the page in at the end.