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How difficult is French As level?

I am contemplating taking French as level with a private tutor outside of school hours on top of Maths, Physics, Chemistry and History in school hours.

I took GCSE French and German (on timetable) and Spanish and Italian (off timetable) and am hoping for A*s in them, furthermore I didnt find the workload too difficult for those.

I would like to know the potential workload and how many hours of private tuition and study that I would likely need to do?

How big is the jump from GCSE to AS-level?

Would it be reasonable to try and achieve and A with say 2 hours of tuition and 2 hours of private study a week?

Thanks for your help :smile:

Reply 1

Cszb44

heyy

I took french A level and would say that I didn't really notice much of a step up from GCSE to AS level.

I can't really advise you on how many hours a week you would need but I can tell you that at my 6th form we had 6 french lessons a week and each lesson was 50 minutes long (to the best of my memory..)

It sounds as if you're pretty competent with languages so maybe the amount of time you've suggested would be more than enough for you but you could start at that and see how it goes and adjust as necessary? :smile:

best of luck and hope I've helped a little!

Reply 2

A_clizzy

Mate,
I'll be honest with you, if you are hesitant about it as of now, then you'll be better of forgetting AS/A level french altogether. Reason being is because it is a massive step up, they require you to be pretty much fluent by the end of the year before the Exam which requires so much work. Personally, I got an A at french GCSE and thought that i could tackle french, I was deadly wrong and am now looking at a D at the very best. I will not lie to you, I didn't put the required effort in but that was due to the fact the class had outpaced me in terms of learning. There were 14 out of my whole year who opted for French and all 14 are actually planning on studying French at University. I would take this advice very seriously, as i know what i have been through this year and it is not fun. BTW my other subjects Maths, Economics, Biology are great and i have easily got straight A's without being Cocky.
conclusion
If you are already 80 percent fluent and find french a breeze, then give it a try. After all you can drop it at the end of the year and it means very little providing your taking 4 As levels.
If your just taking it because you've done french since year 3 and your thinking how hard can it get. Don't bother!
Bear in mind, in A2 you will just be learning vocabulary and not grammar because they assume your fluent.
ITS NOT FUN.
if you go to France 2 months a year on holiday, then your in a good postion. Because that is the case with top students in my class. Well, my former class :smile:

Its been dropped. Thank God
Master your own language first :smile:

(edited 12 years ago)

Reply 3

medbh4805

A_Clizzy is talking crap. If you have any ability for languages French AS is piss easy to be absolutely frank. It gets harder at A2 with a bit of literature but seriously it's not that hard, don't be put off.

Reply 4

JOR2010

Original post by medbh4805

Have to agree here, not much of a step up from GCSE if you're an A* student. Probably due to the fact I was using A2 grammar in my GCSE topics...
Just ensure you can spontaneously make up languages, and do tenses to death.