[lil-mazie]

Yep good luck , the thing is I'm really screwed cuz i wanted to do it in A-levels i found a tutor but it will all be worthless if i fail this exam my sixth form said i just need a C cuz most people don't do it however i actually wanted a B. My french teacher who was just had a baby came back and told all of us we'd be lucky if we got an E but my c/w was a B? Oh well with the help of this tutor i think i can get a good grade in my A-level fingers crossed

[apolocreed]

(Original post by Junaid96)
Not necessarily.. writing in English requires you to understand what you've read/heard and not just reproduce it parrot-fashion.

At A-level you can often get away with copying out extracts from the text as an answer as you're meant to give answers in the foreign language.

Imagine you don't speak the language and you read:

Jon ist ins Kino gegangen.

And the question was "what did Jon do?".

You could just copy it down and hope for the best. If you have to write in English, however, there's no hope unless you actually understand the language.

Reading and listening exams are about comprehension, not producing language of your own. They leave the writing/speaking for.. well, the writing and speaking exams.

This way of learning doesn't prepare you for actual french however...and the listening in no way helps towards you understanding a french person (I'm speaking from the point of view from someone who took their igcse's last year and is finishing of a 9 month stint in a french school). The exam boards need to seriously rethink their french exams, and put a lot more emphasis on speaking and listening...when push comes to shove your not going to be writing little notes to people in france and whipping out the dictionary left right and center

[The Polymath]

(Original post by apolocreed)
This way of learning doesn't prepare you for actual french however...and the listening in no way helps towards you understanding a french person (I'm speaking from the point of view from someone who took their igcse's last year and is finishing of a 9 month stint in a french school). The exam boards need to seriously rethink their french exams, and put a lot more emphasis on speaking and listening...when push comes to shove your not going to be writing little notes to people in france and whipping out the dictionary left right and center

GCSE is not meant to be preparing people for going to France, though. I would imagine the government is trying to push A-level language uptake by making GCSEs more accessible.

[apolocreed]

(Original post by Junaid96)
GCSE is not meant to be preparing people for going to France, though. I would imagine the government is trying to push A-level language uptake by making GCSEs more accessible.

But don't you feel student's should know what they will be signing up for?

[Mr Young]

(Original post by lil-mazie)
Oh thank god, i almost died anyways the exam on the 14th I printed the vocab book and i have to learn it which isn't too hard cuz i have good memory but how do i try and learn it???? sorry for so much question but i'm going mad!

have you heard of vocab express?

It's a very good site where you can learn French vocab that will be present in the exam or most likely be present. If you look through the specification and see what topics that will come up, go on vocab express and learn all the vocab to do with the topics.

That's what I would advise you to do as it is not just reading from a book which would be quite monotonous and not help.

Any other questions just ask as I completed the same course you are doing!

Also i would VERY much advise doing all the past papers on the new spec so 2010 and 2011 papers. You will only be able to do the reading but seeing the little tricks they put in the papers e.g. putting in not so obvious negative phrases etc. will help.

All the best for your exam!

[Moscardini]

(Original post by Junaid96)
Not necessarily.. writing in English requires you to understand what you've read/heard and not just reproduce it parrot-fashion.

At A-level you can often get away with copying out extracts from the text as an answer as you're meant to give answers in the foreign language.

Imagine you don't speak the language and you read:

Jon ist ins Kino gegangen.

And the question was "what did Jon do?".

You could just copy it down and hope for the best. If you have to write in English, however, there's no hope unless you actually understand the language.

Reading and listening exams are about comprehension, not producing language of your own. They leave the writing/speaking for.. well, the writing and speaking exams.

I dont know whether this was true with the old edexcel spec, but with the WJEC one you weren't aloud to copy the text exactly, if you did you didnt get the marks, you had to use synonyms and change verbs etc

[The Polymath]

(Original post by Moscardini)
I dont know whether this was true with the old edexcel spec, but with the WJEC one you weren't aloud to copy the text exactly, if you did you didnt get the marks, you had to use synonyms and change verbs etc

That is the case for most of the questions, but not all. Even then it takes very basic knowledge to remix the sentence.

[The Polymath]

(Original post by apolocreed)
But don't you feel student's should know what they will be signing up for?

Not sure. There are a few problems which seem to have contradicting solutions:

Students are ..failing A-level languages (make GCSE's harder to filter out weaker candidates (love that phrase, weaker candidates :P)
..not choosing A-level languages (make A-level easier to encourage more people)
..failing GCSE languages (make GCSEs easier or tougher to either filter our poor linguists or encourage poor linguists to have a go)
..lacking in interest in languages (make GCSEs easier)

[gemnomnom]

(Original post by lil-mazie)
can i ask something, how many courseworks do they take is it one speaking and one writing cuz if not i'm screwed one of speaking was a G and the other was a B, tell me pls

WTF is a grade G?

This thread must be a joke. What language to you read/write/speak in the exam if not French?

[lil-mazie]

(Original post by gemnomnom)
WTF is a grade G?

This thread must be a joke. What language to you read/write/speak in the exam if not French?

That's not nice, is it my fault my teacher interrupted me half way through causing me to forget everything i had memorised i got confused and scared so i just BS the way through, in my eyes that G is a U. Hopefully they only take one the B one or i will die

[lil-mazie]

question pls, if i do alevels french would i survive if i get a tutor to teach me eveything i should have learnt in gcse will that be ok? Or not cuz i'm starting to worry