Screen time and well-being in French: reading the evidence

What you are doing

A French article claims that teenagers who spend more time on screens sleep less and feel more tired. You are going to understand it in detail, check its numbers, decide what the survey does and does not prove, and then write your own article in French on whether screens are good or bad for young people's well-being. This is GCSE Higher-level reading, translation and writing.

Step 1 — understanding the article

Answer in English. The paragraph number is in brackets.

(a) Who took part in the survey, and for how long did they record information? (intro and [1])

(b) Which screen time was not counted? [1]

(c) Apart from screen time, what two things did pupils record? [1]

(d) Describe Maëlle's problem in the evening. [3]

(e) What did Yanis change, and what two effects has he noticed? [3]

(f) Why does the writer say we should not jump to conclusions? Give the example the writer uses. [4]

(g) Give the nurse's three pieces of advice. [5]

Step 2 — check the numbers

Work out the percentage of each group who feel tired in the morning (tired ÷ pupils × 100). Round to the nearest whole number.

(a) Paragraph [2] says plus des deux tiers of the "more than 6 hours" group feel tired. Paragraph [3] says the proportion of tired pupils is deux fois plus élevée when the phone is in the bedroom. Are both claims true? Show how you know.

(b) Someone says: "41 tired pupils against 11 — that's nearly four times as many!" Why is that misleading?

(c) Write three sentences in French describing the data. Use at least two of: la moitié de · plus des deux tiers de · un élève sur trois · deux fois plus · en moyenne · parmi les élèves qui…

Step 3 — a link, or a cause?

In English: does this survey prove that screens cause tiredness? Give one other explanation for the pattern, and two reasons why 120 pupils in one school might not tell us about all teenagers.

Step 4 — translate into English

A reader, Chloé, wrote in to the magazine. Translate her paragraph into natural English. Watch the tenses: they change in every sentence.

Step 5 — write your own article in French

A French-language youth magazine asks: « Les écrans : amis ou ennemis de notre bien-être ? » Write about 150 words in French. You may write as yourself or as an invented character. Cover all four points:

1. comment les jeunes utilisent les écrans (present tense) ;
2. un exemple récent, positif ou négatif (perfect and imperfect) ;
3. les effets sur la santé physique et mentale — des avantages et des inconvénients, avec vos opinions justifiées ;
4. ce que vous allez changer, ou ce que les jeunes devraient faire (future and conditional).

Step 6 — accuracy check

• Past participles with être agree: je suis allée if you are female.
• Perfect for single events (j'ai décidé), imperfect for descriptions and habits (j'étais fatigué, je regardais).
• After si + imperfect comes the conditional, never the future: si je dormais plus, je serais…
• Accents on écran, santé, bien-être, téléphone, réseaux; a space before : ? !

Step by step

1. 10 min — Read the article twice, then answer Step 1 (a) to (g) in English.
2. 10 min — Step 2: fill in the percentages, check the two claims and write three French sentences. On a computer: =ROUND(D2/B2*100,0) in the empty column of the CSV.
3. 5 min — Step 3: link or cause.
4. 10 min — Step 4: translate Chloé's paragraph.
5. 20 min — Step 5: plan for 3 minutes, then write your 150-word article.
6. 5 min — Step 6: go through the accuracy check line by line.

If you finish early

• Write three tips in French for a younger pupil starting secondary school, using the imperative: Éteins…, Laisse…, Fais…
• The survey only asked about tiredness. Write two more questions, in French, that would tell us more about well-being, and say what answer format you would use (yes/no, scale of 1 to 5, hours).
• Translate the nurse's final quotation into English in three different ways, and say which sounds most natural.