Teacher guide

AQA GCSE English Language revision for teachers

These activities are mapped to AQA GCSE English Language 8700, which is the one specification on this site with no subject content in it at all. Look at its topic list and you find the exam looking back: Paper 1 reading and writing, Paper 2 reading and writing, and the spoken language endorsement. There is nothing beneath those headings because there is nothing to know. A student cannot revise this the way they revise the causes of a war or the parts of a cell, and the usual move, map the topics and find the gaps, has nothing to bite on. What is left is a small number of moves, practised on texts a student has not read before. These sixteen activities are that practice, arranged by the section of the paper each one prepares for.

This page lists what we actually have for AQA GCSE English Language 8700. It is built from the live activities, so it is accurate on the day you read it.

A specification with nothing in it

Every other board and subject page on this site is organised around something a student has to know. Sixteen topics of astronomy, five themes of citizenship, six areas of maths.

English Language has none. Its structure is the assessment and only the assessment:

Paper 1, Section A reading a 20th or 21st century fiction extract, Section B descriptive or narrative writing.
Paper 2, Section A reading two linked non-fiction texts, one of them 19th century, Section B writing to present a viewpoint.
The spoken language endorsement, presenting and then responding to questions.

There are no subtopics because there is nothing to put in them. The specification describes what a student will be asked to do, never what they are supposed to have learned.

What that changes about revising it

Most revision advice assumes a syllabus: work out what you do not know, go and learn it, check it stuck. None of that applies here. A student cannot be behind on English Language in the way they can be behind on the endocrine system, and they cannot finish it either.

What improves instead is speed and habit. How fast a student notices that a sentence has been held back to the end of a paragraph. Whether inference comes automatically or has to be dragged out. Whether they plan before writing or start and hope.

That is why these are short and repetitive rather than long and comprehensive, and why the same student can usefully do the same one twice. Thirteen of the sixteen put a piece of text on screen and ask the student to work on it directly.

Retrieval practice is the wrong model here

Much of this site is built on retrieval practice, and the case for it is a good one. It also assumes there is something stored to retrieve.

For most of English Language there is not. The exception is the terminology, and that genuinely is recall: a student who cannot name what a writer has done cannot write about it under time pressure. Beyond that vocabulary, what these activities offer is rehearsal rather than retrieval, and it is worth being clear that this is a different claim.

The part that does not count

The spoken language endorsement is reported separately and does not affect the 9 to 1 grade. It still has to be prepared for, and it is the part most likely to be squeezed out of a scheme of work in the summer term precisely because it does not count.

Two activities cover it: preparing a presentation, and handling the questions afterwards. At eight and nine minutes they are the shortest here, which is also why they are the only two in this set tagged for tutor time.

Finding the right one

The lists below group by classroom use, worked out from what each activity contains. Homework is not a heading, because nearly all of them suit it and a heading holding everything separates nothing.

Because everything here is short, this is the one subject page where the whole set genuinely works as lesson starters. That case is made in 15-minute GCSE revision activities. The three activities embedded below are playable here without an account.

Using them

None of it needs marking, which matters more in English than anywhere else on this site, because the marking load is the reason English departments run less practice than they would like. For students working alone between lessons, see independent revision students actually keep doing. To put several in front of one class in order, build a sprint.

Everything else we have, by subject and board, is on the revision pages.

What this page does not do

The extracts are seen, and the exam's are not. Every passage here was written for the activity, so the annotation lands exactly on the teaching point. That is good for showing a technique and no substitute for meeting a text cold.

It is light on the 19th century. Two of the four Paper 2 reading activities use a 19th-century text and the other two do not, so the register students find hardest is the one this page covers least.

It does not mark extended writing. The writing activities work on planning, structure and technique, not on producing a full response with a mark on it.

It does not track anything, so there is no completion list to check.

Every live English Language activity for AQA

16 activities, all mapped to AQA GCSE English Language (8700).

Good for homework (14)

Good for tutor time (2)

Think on Your Feet 8 min
Presentation Prep 9 min

See all 16, by topic

Try it with your class

AQA English Language 13 minutes

Spot the Technique

15 steps, 8 interactive, 6 activity types.

Best used for

Starter Homework Independent study

Starter: Short enough to open a lesson and still leave time to teach.
Homework: Set it as a link. It marks itself.
Independent study: Explains before it asks, so a student can work alone.

Try one question

For a Q1 on the opening lines, which of these is a valid answer. Something explicitly stated in the extract?

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AQA English Language 15 minutes

Fact or Inference?

14 steps, 9 interactive, 7 activity types.

Best used for

Starter Homework Independent study

Starter: Short enough to open a lesson and still leave time to teach.
Homework: Set it as a link. It marks itself.
Independent study: Explains before it asks, so a student can work alone.

Try one question

Which of these is a fact explicitly STATED in Text A, rather than something you have to infer?

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AQA English Language 14 minutes

Argument Architect

14 steps, 6 interactive, 5 activity types.

Best used for

Starter Homework Independent study

Starter: Short enough to open a lesson and still leave time to teach.
Homework: Set it as a link. It marks itself.
Independent study: Explains before it asks, so a student can work alone.

Try one question

You are writing a formal LETTER to your local councillor, arguing for a new youth centre. Which opening best matches that form and audience?

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Common questions

How do you revise a subject with no content?

By practising the moves rather than covering a syllabus. There is nothing to memorise, so what improves is how quickly a student spots a technique, infers from a detail or plans a paragraph. That needs repetition on new texts, which is a different shape of revision from every other subject.

Are the extracts real exam texts?

No. They are short passages written for the activity, so we can put the annotation exactly where the teaching point is. That also means they are seen texts, and the exam gives an unseen one. The activities practise the technique, not the surprise.

Is the 19th-century material covered?

Partly. Two of the four Paper 2 reading activities work with a 19th-century text; the other two use modern prose. If the older register is what your class struggles with, this page will not be enough on its own.

Why is the spoken language endorsement included?

Because it still has to happen, even though it is reported separately and does not affect the 9 to 1 grade. Two activities cover preparing a presentation and handling questions afterwards. They are the two shortest here, at eight and nine minutes.

How does the coverage map onto the papers?

Four activities for Paper 1 reading, three for Paper 1 writing, four for Paper 2 reading, three for Paper 2 writing and two for the endorsement. Sixteen in total, each between eight and fifteen minutes.

Will I see who has completed them?

No. Following a shared link records nothing about who followed it, which is a deliberate choice about children's data.

Put one in front of a class

Tell us the subject and how long you have. You get a link to hand out, and it marks itself.

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Related for teachers

15-minute GCSE revision activities for teachers Short, specification-matched revision activities for those spare fifteen minutes: a starter, tutor time, the end of a lesson or a cover period. Students get their answers checked as they work, so there is nothing for you to mark afterwards.
Independent revision students actually keep doing What keeps a student revising when nobody is watching, what DoRevision does about it, and where the limits of that are. Written for the teacher who has run out of ways to chase Year 11 in April.
Retrieval practice for GCSE, without the marking What retrieval practice is, what the research does and doesn't show about it, and how to run it in a GCSE class without making work for yourself. Every claim on this page names its source.