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AQA A Level MFL

Hi everyone,
I'm going to be starting A Level French and Spanish in September. I generally get 100 UMS in past papers and am pretty confident about my GCSE results, too, but I know A Level is a giant step up and will require basically fluent speaking and writing, and I'm a loooooong way from that! So, does anyone have any advice on how to significantly improve your level of fluency in a foreign language (apart from immersion, because although I'd love to travel to France or Spain unfortunately I'll be full-time schooling)? Any tips would be much appreciated.
Thanks :smile:
Original post by GlassyMarbles
Hi everyone,
I'm going to be starting A Level French and Spanish in September. I generally get 100 UMS in past papers and am pretty confident about my GCSE results, too, but I know A Level is a giant step up and will require basically fluent speaking and writing, and I'm a loooooong way from that! So, does anyone have any advice on how to significantly improve your level of fluency in a foreign language (apart from immersion, because although I'd love to travel to France or Spain unfortunately I'll be full-time schooling)? Any tips would be much appreciated.
Thanks :smile:


Hi, i do a level french and spanish and i would say that over the summer holidays you should perfect all of the basic grammar as it will save you a lot of time and effort in September ( and you will also really impress your teachers)

If your school run an exchange programme, defo you should do it as you will be speaking to a native, my french exchange student couldnt speak english so absolutley perfect!

Fluency will come so you just have to be patient however will come quicker than you think if you put in the work so hang in there and go for those a grades!

Also when you do a past paper, always 'find it fix it' so find your mistakes and do the paper again to get the right answer

Even more is to tutor younger pupils in languages, especially the grammar will help you reinforce it for you
Original post by Gemma2204
Hi, i do a level french and spanish and i would say that over the summer holidays you should perfect all of the basic grammar as it will save you a lot of time and effort in September ( and you will also really impress your teachers)

If your school run an exchange programme, defo you should do it as you will be speaking to a native, my french exchange student couldnt speak english so absolutley perfect!

Fluency will come so you just have to be patient however will come quicker than you think if you put in the work so hang in there and go for those a grades!

Also when you do a past paper, always 'find it fix it' so find your mistakes and do the paper again to get the right answer

Even more is to tutor younger pupils in languages, especially the grammar will help you reinforce it for you


thank you!
Reply 3
Avatar for Asolare
Asolare
20
Original post by GlassyMarbles
snip


Okay so tips for improving in a foreign language, here we gooooo:

- Definitely what's already been said about teaching others. When I taught my friend about German grammar I managed to reinforce concepts and even learn new stuff when doing it.
- Listen to music in a foreign language; I only know 3 French songs - Dernieré Danse by Indila, Je veux te voir by Yelle and Moustache by Twin Twin (which is a really cheesy song) and 0 Spanish sorry :frown:
- Read children's books
- Audio books also super useful
- Read [online] newspapers in said language
- Change your browser, websites, phone to said language
- Find some games you can play in said language, won't be hard through App store - on PC might need a bit more digging.
- watch tv series in said language - EXTR@ for French, Spanish or German is great (it's on Youtube, google extra french)
- watch films in said language
- listen to radio in said language - will prob be able to find an app for it durch App store
- memrise, duolingo, quizlet, mondly, lingvist = all great for boosting vocab. lingvist is specifically for french
- practice typing or speaking to native speakers
- speak to yourself in the mirror yes it seems crazy but hey
- try and learn vocab in stuff you're interested in and would actually talk about - i.e. if you're never going to talk about art, don't bother learning art vocab, whereas if you're a huge fan of music then try learn as much as poss.
- try and live your life centred around a language; when you see things try and think of their name in foreign language first, try counting in foreign language, try thinking in it etc. pre-warning, this will get very irritating when you find yourself automatically thinking in a different language without effort and then when you can't remember the names of things in English
- forvo.com is great for listening to native speakers pronounce words, you can try and mimic (i know french pronunciation is just ridiculous)
- tatoeba.org - can search for phrases in another language, particularly useful for idioms
- clozemaster.com - fill in the gaps with the correct word

But I think the 2 most fundamental things are really:

#1 - Honestly try and make the language a core part of your life, as mentioned - try and use the other language when thinking and stop being so dependent on English. This is a lot easier said than done, but something I'm going to try doing shortly is to have an hour of the day where I only use German for things and distance myself from English.

#2 - Have a clear goal. Is there something specific you want to learn in the language or are you really just aiming for 'fluency'? Either way I'd say try and make a goal at least - my goal rn in German is to improve at reading in German, so I'm working on reading German books and listening to Audibooks (whilst reading) as well. The problem with schooling is that it tries to raise your proficiency across reading/listening/writing/speaking at once, it can be a good thing, but if you really want to focus on one area you need to make it your goal to be able to idk e..g read 1 French book within a week. Even if you're just aiming for fluency, have mini goals for what you'd like to learn every day.

Also with the idea of 'fluency' be very careful as this is an incredibly subjective term. If you were to go based upon level C2 of CEFRL (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_European_Framework_of_Reference_for_Languages) it would require 1200+ hours plus to reach this level in French. But once you reached level B1-B2 which is 350-550 hours then you'd be pretty much comfortable in France. I don't think your aim should be fluency as I don't think many people turn around one day and say "wow i just achieved fluency" it's more of a surprising thing to realise, you should have clear defined goals about what you want to learn in the language - also focus on the difficult parts of the language. E.g. in german, prepositions with verbs and separable verbs and modal particles are an absolute nightmare and what people should focus on a lot, whereas in romance languages it's likely to be moreso to do with pronunciation of words.

Omg sorry I wrote you an essay but I hope this helps. Don't stress though, AS nor A2 nor 1st-2nd year undergrad expect '''fluency''.
(edited 7 years ago)
Original post by Inexorably
x


Wow, never expected so much help! Thanks for all your tips :smile:

*edit* yeah, we watch extr@ occasionally in our gcse classes. It's so cheesy and pretty cringeworthy but a great way of learning the language :biggrin:
(edited 7 years ago)

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