The Student Room Group

Scroll to see replies

I found AS french soooo difficult...it was more the actual conversations I found hard though - you can work on the written/listening work quite easily but the conversation just takes tons of practice and bags of confidence! Hehe! Just make sure you don't let it take over your other subjects because that's what happened to me and it just ruined the whole experience!

I came out with an A in the end! It was the biggest miracle ever! =P
hazzypants
... therefore I would like to do some learning this summer before I go back. I heard it's really hard, even with A/A* at GCSE, so is there anything that sixth form people would recommend for me to do?

Any particular tenses or websites that are useful? Or Vocab to learn, songs, books, anything french really

merci:biggrin:


Which exam board are you doing? I'm with WJEC, but we use a book called élan 1 (it's purple) - it's really intended for AQA, but it covers everything. I actually self-taught the AS with a little help from the college, and I didn't find it too difficult.

In terms of tenses, you'll need all the GCSE ones and others like the subjunctive (aaargh!). There's a great French site that has a character called Tex, but for some reason it's not in my Favourites. :redface: I also registered at this one:

www.sharedtalk.com

It's kinda like MSN, but you can meet French speakers from all over the world. I'd recommend getting a free Hotmail account that you use just for SharedTalk though, as some are quite keen to get your email address! :wink:

I didn't watch French TV too much, but www.france24.com is pretty good. You can watch a program in French or English - I tend to watch the French first, then the English to check I've understood.

For the oral exam, I'd recommend a book called Mot A Mot by Paul Humberstone - it has tons of vocabulary in it, and it's more useful than the word lists in the back of the textbook.

Above all, you just need to keep your ear "tuned into" French accents. If you're looking for an excuse to slack off, maybe try renting Les Choristes - the version I saw had English subtitles.

Hope this helps, bonne chance! :france:
Muppety_Kid
Which exam board are you doing? I'm with WJEC, but we use a book called élan 1 (it's purple) - it's really intended for AQA, but it covers everything. I actually self-taught the AS with a little help from the college, and I didn't find it too difficult.

In terms of tenses, you'll need all the GCSE ones and others like the subjunctive (aaargh!). There's a great French site that has a character called Tex, but for some reason it's not in my Favourites. :redface: I also registered at this one:

www.sharedtalk.com

It's kinda like MSN, but you can meet French speakers from all over the world. I'd recommend getting a free Hotmail account that you use just for SharedTalk though, as some are quite keen to get your email address! :wink:

I didn't watch French TV too much, but www.france24.com is pretty good. You can watch a program in French or English - I tend to watch the French first, then the English to check I've understood.

For the oral exam, I'd recommend a book called Mot A Mot by Paul Humberstone - it has tons of vocabulary in it, and it's more useful than the word lists in the back of the textbook.

Above all, you just need to keep your ear "tuned into" French accents. If you're looking for an excuse to slack off, maybe try renting Les Choristes - the version I saw had English subtitles.

Hope this helps, bonne chance! :france:


I did WJEC, too! And I used élan! :p:

OP, just make sure you revise your GCSE material and get comfortable with it before you move on. You need a strong foundation.

Make sure you know:

Present
Perfect (avoir and etre verbs)
Imperfect
Future indicative
Future (aller + infinitive)
Pluperfect

and then reflexive verbs, adjectival agreements and etre agreements.
Aww, you've finished, Steg. I was going to ask you what you thought of the June AS papers. :frown:

How come your lot went with WJEC anyway? It's an odd choice since we're (well, I'm) outside Wales, but apparently my college chose it because it's a smaller board, so it's easier to get in touch with people.
Reply 5
Muppety_Kid
Which exam board are you doing? I'm with WJEC, but we use a book called élan 1 (it's purple) - it's really intended for AQA, but it covers everything. I actually self-taught the AS with a little help from the college, and I didn't find it too difficult.

In terms of tenses, you'll need all the GCSE ones and others like the subjunctive (aaargh!). There's a great French site that has a character called Tex, but for some reason it's not in my Favourites. :redface: I also registered at this one:

www.sharedtalk.com

It's kinda like MSN, but you can meet French speakers from all over the world. I'd recommend getting a free Hotmail account that you use just for SharedTalk though, as some are quite keen to get your email address! :wink:

I didn't watch French TV too much, but www.france24.com is pretty good. You can watch a program in French or English - I tend to watch the French first, then the English to check I've understood.

For the oral exam, I'd recommend a book called Mot A Mot by Paul Humberstone - it has tons of vocabulary in it, and it's more useful than the word lists in the back of the textbook.

Above all, you just need to keep your ear "tuned into" French accents. If you're looking for an excuse to slack off, maybe try renting Les Choristes - the version I saw had English subtitles.

Hope this helps, bonne chance! :france:


Cheers mate, that's really helpful.

I'm guna be with WJEC too, going on a french exchnage in February which i can't wait for.

The book, élan? Can i order that off the net... and would you reccommend me doing it? I Have 6 weeks til I start. in sept. I'm really worried about french tbh, some friends got A* at GCSE and then got Cs at AS Level! I don't wana end up being one of those students!
hazzypants
Cheers mate, that's really helpful.

I'm guna be with WJEC too, going on a french exchnage in February which i can't wait for.

The book, élan? Can i order that off the net... and would you reccommend me doing it? I Have 6 weeks til I start. in sept. I'm really worried about french tbh, some friends got A* at GCSE and then got Cs at AS Level! I don't wana end up being one of those students!


No problem, glad I could help :smile:

Yeah, I'd recommend getting most of your books off the Internet. I don't know about you, but our college had a bridging week (yeah, I'm starting in September) so I found out which textbooks they use for each of my subjects. If you can bump the order value to just over £15, Amazon will deliver it free. It only took 4 days or so for my books to get here.

I'm not sure how hard you'll find the AS - I'm kinda an exception, to be honest. I'm predicted a high A* (my teacher's pushing for 100% :rolleyes:), so she decided to enter me for the AS too. I found all of the exams pretty straightforward, including the speaking, but some of the others from college felt it was quite difficult.

Have you read the specification? That'll give you a better indication of what they want from you. I'd start working through the sections in the élan book, doing all the exercises. When you get to college, either get the teacher to mark it or ask for the answers (I'm sure there'll be an answer book). You need to keep a note of anything you don't understand, and maybe ask for extra worksheets on it. In truth, if you work hard, you should do fine. It helps if you've got a teacher who knows their stuff though!

If you've got any more questions, feel free to PM me. :smile:
Muppety_Kid
No problem, glad I could help :smile:

Yeah, I'd recommend getting most of your books off the Internet. I don't know about you, but our college had a bridging week (yeah, I'm starting in September) so I found out which textbooks they use for each of my subjects. If you can bump the order value to just over £15, Amazon will deliver it free. It only took 4 days or so for my books to get here.

I'm not sure how hard you'll find the AS - I'm kinda an exception, to be honest. I'm predicted a high A* (my teacher's pushing for 100% :rolleyes:), so she decided to enter me for the AS too. I found all of the exams pretty straightforward, including the speaking, but some of the others from college felt it was quite difficult.

Have you read the specification? That'll give you a better indication of what they want from you. I'd start working through the sections in the élan book, doing all the exercises. When you get to college, either get the teacher to mark it or ask for the answers (I'm sure there'll be an answer book). You need to keep a note of anything you don't understand, and maybe ask for extra worksheets on it. In truth, if you work hard, you should do fine. It helps if you've got a teacher who knows their stuff though!

If you've got any more questions, feel free to PM me. :smile:



If you managed to cope with the AS, and think you'll have an A on it, then it's difficult NOT to get 100% at French GCSE. It's pitifully easy because of that silly GCSE UMS system - it's so bloody low. I was clearing my room out the other day (we're moving house) came across a load of higher level GCSE papers, and for French, I tended to get between 47-50/50. On the front, I'd written down all the boundaries, and you only ever needed something like 38/50 to get 90 UMS, making it easy to get 360.

So good luck on that, I'm sure you'll have 100% :smile:

OP should check which textbook they'll get anyway first, shouldn't they, unless their college doesn't provide them with textbooks? élan's really good (it's produced and printed at Oxford, as is the popular German textbook "Zeitgeist").

We're with WJEC for the same reason - you can call them up and actually get straight through to someone who actually knows what they're talking about. Plus, WJEC is said to be the most difficult specification for languages, and it's generally only people who are good at them who take them at my school (most classes tend to be ~40 in size, but languages are as low as 2 and as high as 5).
i think OCR is the most difficult exam board for languages. they're so evil :frown: i looked at a couple of AQA french exam papers and they looked so doable compared to what we have to deal with in the exam.

OP, i'd say to make sure you have a good grasp of your tenses (i wouldn't bother with the pluperfect if it were me, i'd make sure i was competent with past, present and future, and maybe look at the imperfect and conditional), and keep up with your listening. maybe have a listen to some french radio every day, and have a look at their news sites too.

bonne chance :smile:
Greatleysteg
If you managed to cope with the AS, and think you'll have an A on it, then it's difficult NOT to get 100% at French GCSE. It's pitifully easy because of that silly GCSE UMS system - it's so bloody low. I was clearing my room out the other day (we're moving house) came across a load of higher level GCSE papers, and for French, I tended to get between 47-50/50. On the front, I'd written down all the boundaries, and you only ever needed something like 38/50 to get 90 UMS, making it easy to get 360.

So good luck on that, I'm sure you'll have 100% :smile:

OP should check which textbook they'll get anyway first, shouldn't they, unless their college doesn't provide them with textbooks? élan's really good (it's produced and printed at Oxford, as is the popular German textbook "Zeitgeist").

We're with WJEC for the same reason - you can call them up and actually get straight through to someone who actually knows what they're talking about. Plus, WJEC is said to be the most difficult specification for languages, and it's generally only people who are good at them who take them at my school (most classes tend to be ~40 in size, but languages are as low as 2 and as high as 5).


I know what you mean about the GCSE - I was doing the AS listenings without rewinding (just pausing the tape), so when I went back to the GCSE, it was ridiculously slow! It was even worse that everything was played twice before it moved on, otherwise I could've run through once, then sat and done nothing. Instead, I had to be on my toes constantly to avoid missing something. Never mind, I've done it now.

I'm not sure about the OP's "financial situation" (tch, how formal is that? :p:), but my Dad always took the view that if spending a couple of quid on a textbook lets me get ahead over the summer, it's well worth it. I'm speaking from experience at school - it meant I was using the teacher to recap rather than to learn from, but I was bored stupid in lessons. :frown:

But yeah, we're both agreed that élan would be the one to go for.

Oh yeah - something else you might want to look at is the élan grammar book (oops, can't find mine right now). It's not strictly a grammar book, it's just a series of exercises on each of the tenses etc. I haven't finished mine since we're only using it for A2, but it has AS stuff in it as well. However, I'm not sure it's worth the £7! It comes with a CD, but the exercises are just the same as the printed ones in the book, so maybe get a "second hand" copy without the CD from Amazon's Marketplace. I'm sure someone will be selling brand new ones for half the price.
rainbow drops
i think OCR is the most difficult exam board for languages. they're so evil :frown: i looked at a couple of AQA french exam papers and they looked so doable compared to what we have to deal with in the exam.

OP, i'd say to make sure you have a good grasp of your tenses (i wouldn't bother with the pluperfect if it were me, i'd make sure i was competent with past, present and future, and maybe look at the imperfect and conditional), and keep up with your listening. maybe have a listen to some french radio every day, and have a look at their news sites too.

bonne chance :smile:

I disagree - the pluperfect is stupidly simple to form, and being able to form it is pretty important when doing A level, I'd think. Frankly, you should be competent in all tenses to succeed at A level...

And EdExcel is the worst exam board :biggrin:
Reply 11
I've just finished A2 French, and though AS is a big step up from GCSE, you need to cope with it and work hard so that you'll find your A2 year easier. I did AQA French, and though the speaking and coursework can be hard, the written papers are really reasonable. (We too used Elan 1+2).
One piece of advice I'd have to give is know your tenses thoroughly. Don't worry too much about the subjunctive, I'd advise learning only être for the time being. Also the passé simple, don't bother learning it because you won't need to until degree level, but take a quick look over it because you'll need to be able to recognise it.

To be honest, A Level French as a whole was a lot easier than I anticipated when I was 16, but you must know your grammar as it's like a starting block. Everything you learn after is built upon it.

I found at my sixth form that a lot of people dropped out at various points in the first year, and only those who were seriously committed remained to finish it off.

And anyway, I'm headed for a good A in August so it can't be too hard!

Good luck.
Reply 12
Oh, and I agree with jonnythemoose, EdExcel is by far the worst, my Spanish exams were terrible :frown:
Greatleysteg
If you managed to cope with the AS, and think you'll have an A on it, then it's difficult NOT to get 100% at French GCSE. It's pitifully easy because of that silly GCSE UMS system - it's so bloody low. I was clearing my room out the other day (we're moving house) came across a load of higher level GCSE papers, and for French, I tended to get between 47-50/50. On the front, I'd written down all the boundaries, and you only ever needed something like 38/50 to get 90 UMS, making it easy to get 360.


Wow, is that the same for GCSE across all exam boards? When I sat my GCSEs I was never aware of the UMS system or how high/low boundaries were. I'm interested to know as I sat Spanish GCSE this year and am hoping I've done well! :p:

(btw, I take it 90 UMS = full marks?)
city_chic
Wow, is that the same for GCSE across all exam boards? When I sat my GCSEs I was never aware of the UMS system or how high/low boundaries were. I'm interested to know as I sat Spanish GCSE this year and am hoping I've done well! :p:

(btw, I take it 90 UMS = full marks?)



90 UMS in each of the four components, yes :smile: Foundation tier can only get 59 max in each component.

so :

320/360 = A*
280/360 = A
240/360 = B
200/360 = C

If I remember rightly. :smile:
Reply 15
city_chic
Wow, is that the same for GCSE across all exam boards? When I sat my GCSEs I was never aware of the UMS system or how high/low boundaries were. I'm interested to know as I sat Spanish GCSE this year and am hoping I've done well! :p:

(btw, I take it 90 UMS = full marks?)


For my GCSE mock paper (2007 edexcel), for an A* we only needed 68% in the reading and 72% in the listening for an A*. For Edexcel art GCSE, they tend to make the exams hard and the boundaries low.
Reply 16
Muppety_Kid
No problem, glad I could help :smile:

Yeah, I'd recommend getting most of your books off the Internet. I don't know about you, but our college had a bridging week (yeah, I'm starting in September) so I found out which textbooks they use for each of my subjects. If you can bump the order value to just over £15, Amazon will deliver it free. It only took 4 days or so for my books to get here.

I'm not sure how hard you'll find the AS - I'm kinda an exception, to be honest. I'm predicted a high A* (my teacher's pushing for 100% :rolleyes:), so she decided to enter me for the AS too. I found all of the exams pretty straightforward, including the speaking, but some of the others from college felt it was quite difficult.

Have you read the specification? That'll give you a better indication of what they want from you. I'd start working through the sections in the élan book, doing all the exercises. When you get to college, either get the teacher to mark it or ask for the answers (I'm sure there'll be an answer book). You need to keep a note of anything you don't understand, and maybe ask for extra worksheets on it. In truth, if you work hard, you should do fine. It helps if you've got a teacher who knows their stuff though!

If you've got any more questions, feel free to PM me. :smile:


Okay, so we've established that a good thing to do would be to sort out my present, past, perfect, condiitonal etc; tenses....

Would Elan be good to learn these from? Or are their any other books... kind of bridigin the gap between gcse and a level, that people might reccommend.. or any good ones that will teach me the grammar necessary, and more...?

also, which elan, the workbook... and any good cheap, book websites?!


sorry for all the questions! merci everyone. you've all be very helpful :biggrin:
hazzypants
Okay, so we've established that a good thing to do would be to sort out my present, past, perfect, condiitonal etc; tenses....

Would Elan be good to learn these from? Or are their any other books... kind of bridigin the gap between gcse and a level, that people might reccommend.. or any good ones that will teach me the grammar necessary, and more...?

also, which elan, the workbook... and any good cheap, book websites?!


sorry for all the questions! merci everyone. you've all be very helpful :biggrin:


Yeah, I think Elan would do it. It's got grammar sections in the back that explain when each...err..."part" is used. I'll see if I can find some sample pages.

Sorry, I can hear the dinner bell! I'll come back in half an hour or so, so please bear with me!
Reply 18
Muppety_Kid
Yeah, I think Elan would do it. It's got grammar sections in the back that explain when each...err..."part" is used. I'll see if I can find some sample pages.

Sorry, I can hear the dinner bell! I'll come back in half an hour or so, so please bear with me!


okay, thanks!
when you come backk..

is it this: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Elan-WJEC-Self-study-Guide-CD-ROM/dp/0199153809/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1217014166&sr=8-1

or this? http://www.amazon.co.uk/Elan-WJEC-Self-study-Guide-CD-ROM/dp/0199153809/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1217014166&sr=8-1

or this? http://www.amazon.co.uk/Elan-Grammar-Workbook-Marian-Jones/dp/0199123063/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1217014305&sr=8-2
Greatleysteg
90 UMS in each of the four components, yes :smile: Foundation tier can only get 59 max in each component.

so :

320/360 = A*
280/360 = A
240/360 = B
200/360 = C

If I remember rightly. :smile:


Ah right, thanks. So technically you need 80/90 in each to get an A*. But the boundaries are always a lot lower?


hazzypants
For my GCSE mock paper (2007 edexcel), for an A* we only needed 68% in the reading and 72% in the listening for an A*. For Edexcel art GCSE, they tend to make the exams hard and the boundaries low.


Wow, really? I did mine with WJEC. I hope it's similar though...

Latest