I can't speak.

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Reply 20

À la folie, pas du tout

wesetters

We had it for French too.

Mot à Mot.

that book lol
do you still find it useful at uni?

Reply 21

quintsy

xx Rebecca

lol yeh i know it's brilliant.. do you know what other languages they do or where i could find out? basically, do they do an italian one? :rolleyes:

mot a mot, especially during my exams. :biggrin:

(omg i'm such a geek!)

Indeed they do, and they've got a Spanish one too- Palabra Por Palabra. :smile:

Those books= :love:

Reply 22

Chubasco

Indeed they do, and they've got a Spanish one too- Palabra Por Palabra

I've got that, it's good, especially the essay writing stuff! It also has links to useful websites - really must try them! Is Mot à Mot as good? Am thinking of getting it and working really hard on languages as college are starting their big university/Oxbridge push.

Reply 23

quintsy

Crazy_emz

Mot à Mot is really good for essay writing in particular- but yep, I'd say they're equally good. :smile:

Reply 24

À la folie, pas du tout

suuuuuuseh

Indeed they do, and they've got a Spanish one too- Palabra Por Palabra. :smile:

Those books= :love:

thank you

i will definitely buy that.
and crazy_emz, yes mot a mot is brilliant! it's invaluable for exam prep. and the c/w.

Reply 25

Chubasco

Thanks to both of you, I really need to do some serious work on vocab/grammar! We have reviews with all our subject teachers tomorrow and I bet that's what I get told to do!

Reply 26

arpeggio

I know what you mean about speaking - I hate the feeling of being put on the spot and either not understanding what is being said to me or not knowing how to answer it. But there are ways around it: I've found that when asked a question it helps to take a deep breath and really think about your answer before you start speaking. It's very easy to dive straight in and then come to a halt as you realise that you don't know how to say what you want to say. It's not that you don't have the ability to have a conversation in German - you said yourself that you don't have a problem with written/listening/reading work - maybe it's more the fact that it's unpredictable and you can't rewind and erase what you just said? If that's the case then just let yourself make mistakes and let the assistant correct you (that's what he/she is there for :smile:

) With time you can become more accurate with grammar etc, but at the moment the main hurdle is actually answering the question - the rest comes with practice. Good luck!

Reply 27

Excalibur

Thanks a lot guys for your constructive advice & support. I went into class today, and what did I find but a stack of "Wort für Wort" books on our desks! Apparently our teacher ordered them for us so that we can improve our speaking & writing :p:

I've had a look at it and it looks really good - I'll try and learn a few phrases each day. I still don't feel at all confident with speaking, but hopefully I might be able to extend my sessions with the assistant and I'll try and do as much practice at home.

Reply 28

À la folie, pas du tout

Excalibur

good luck! i'm sure you'll be fine and you'll probably find that there are loads of other people in your class that are just as nervous as you. :smile:

Reply 29

Epitomessence

I have a weekly 15 minute session with the Spanish assistant, and I'm totally awful. It's actual cringe-inducing. I hate it.

So, if it makes you feel any better, you're not alone. :smile:

Reply 30

gaijin

I was going to say that.

I used to get about an hour with our assistant. That said, there were about 10 of us doing French A-Levels, so I reckon that works out about right.

Reply 31

Epitomessence

wesetters

15 minutes !

Blimey...that's pretty poor to be honest...

I agree. My school is poor as well. :biggrin:

Reply 32

À la folie, pas du tout

wesetters

We were in groups of 3 for 45 minute sessions...so it's about the same average time with the assistant, but I'm sure it was a lot more helpful.

we went in pairs for an hour a week to the french assistant and sometimes individually for half an hour instead. There were only 6 of us doing french A Level in our school... i actually found it better to go individually for half an hour rather than together for an hour, because at A Level standard people differ in how good they are at the language/at speaking and so invariably one of you is going to get held back a bit.

Reply 33

Toasted marshmellows

i don't get any time with language assisstant because she came to england then changed her mind and decided to go back to france! nice! lol. ANyway it means i feel as tho i get hardly any practice with speaking (tho the teacher has tried to put more into lesson time as a result) and am kind of worried about it since it is one of my worst areas - still, good luck to yee all, i may get mot a mot - looks interesting!

Reply 34

kellywood_5

I only got about 15 minutes a week with the French assistant and there were only 3 of us doing A2! It was in our normal lesson time as well, rather than in addition to it. Not that I'm complaining, I hate speaking and those 15 minutes felt more like 15 hours :frown:

Reply 35

quintsy

I get half an hour for GCSE French every fortnight; but this is with 15 other people- so we usually end up saying one sentence in the whole time we're there. For German our teacher groups us according to ability, and I end up going for an hour (supposedly half an hour but we never come back :p:

) with four other people once every month perhaps.

Reply 36

Chubasco

I get 30 min a week with 2 other people for Spanish (although the teacher is trying to get me more time) and 30 min a week with one other person for French.

Reply 37

Excalibur

Hmm, seems like we have it quite lucky - the AS students (there's 7 of us) have 30 minutes individual sessions per week, during our free periods; while the A2 students (there's 3 this year) have two 30 min sessions a week. considering that I feel even worse that my speaking isn't up to scratch :s-smilie:

Reply 38

Chubasco

Don't feel bad about it! You are lucky though, I have French speaking on a Wednesday and it keeps getting cancelled for various reasons.

Reply 39

leannemarie

Excalibur

Try not to worry about it too much because being nervous normally makes it worse! At uni I was put in a group with 2 people who spent their gap years in South America while I had visited Spain for a couple of days so I thought it was a pretty bad match! My Director of Studies asked me how everything was going and I mentioned this lesson/supervision and she said maybe they needed to reorganised the group and emailed my Spanish tutor but my Spanish tutor said that I was in the right group and of equal ability so I just tried to act more confident even if I wasn't and it seems to have worked! My report said that I have grown in confidence and fluidity (although I am far from being able to string many sentences together!) One of my friends is doing Russian and hates her teacher which always makes her nervous and affects her pronunciation. The A Level exams aren't about being 100% perfect, they are more about being able to get your point across, however basic the language. Obviously if the language is great then that's a bonus but it's better to say something badly than say nothing at all because you're worried that it's not good enough.

Hope that helps a little.