I used a translator for my French Speaking Prep and I got caught. Help!

Right, before you start calling me an idiot or whatever I would like to explain briefly what happened.

So I have a French Speaking exam soon, we have been asked to do prep at home for the questions we need to answer. I first wrote my answer in English (like I did for my writing) and then I translated it into French by myself, as I find translators are often inaccurate. However, sometimes when the dictionary isn't very helpful I use translators, sometimes for one sentence or just for one word, not for the whole thing. If there is a large translation I always usually go through it and check if it makes sense and change words, so it's essentially my work.

How I got caught?

My friend (sort of contemplating if he should still be my friend) baited me out by writing a note which hinted at me using a translator because my teacher asked me if I had anybody do the work for me and I said no, which is true.

Well, when she found the note she found out I "cheated" and I'm in this desperate situation now. There are two scenarios, one is ideal and one is worse case scenario. The ideal scenario is that I just have to go to the detention next week and that's it. Worst case scenario, is that they are going to talk to an assistant head, report me to the exam board (AQA) and seek consequences. I predict that they will probably ban me from exams on their exam boards, which will hinder my future as most of my exams next year are AQA.

Yes I'm a stupid idiot for using it in the first place, but please, someone assure me it won't go that far. I cannot afford to sit only Maths and ICT next year. Other subject controlled assessments going on right now doesn't really make my life easier as they take a lot of time.

Thanks...

Sorry… but you did cheat. Use of a translator like Google Translate is so painfully obvious and frankly if you translated the work, it probably wasn't even worth trying to revise it.

If your teacher reports it to the exam board, you could either be failed for the speaking module or failed for the entire course or disqualified from AQA courses. As it's speaking prep, it probably won't go this far — but they may enforce any of these sanctions. Hopefully they don't report it. I really can't have much sympathy with things like this. You could have used a number of tools that aren't translators, if only you were bothered about putting the time into it.

I don't see how you can say it is cheating?

In the GCSE writing exam you are allowed to use a dictionary = translating.

GCSE speaking exams, you make the speaking prep not in exam conditions.. so i guess he did it at home? I can't see how that is against AQA regulations

Use of a dictionary ≠ translation.

I know how GCSE prep works and I would agree with you. However, depending on the specific guidelines for MfL @ AQA, there could still be sanctions imposed. I do hope there isn't because it could seriously hinder OP's future. I reckon this is just their teacher trying to scare them though. Let's hope for OP's sake it is.