GCSE French HELP!!

Currently i am in Year 11 and in 2 weeks we will have a major french test which will decide if we are doing foundation or higher. We need a grade 5 in foundation and a grade 6 in higher to be able to do higher. Right now i have been practising future tense and present tense. However i am unsure what vocab i need and how to get that grade 6 and 5. Any tips and advice would be much appreciated. (We are doing listening, reading and writing for the test). I am an able student with grade 7/8s in my mocks in other subjects but i never really bothered in french so i am struggling- i need all the help i can get!!.

(edited 6 years ago)

Reply 1

HollyFx

do you know what topics you are doing?

Reply 2

itslibby

Original post by Danny7867

What exam board is it? You should be able to go onto the website/in a textbook to find the topics that you need to know vocab for.

Good luck!

Reply 3

xoxofearlessgirl

Quizlet will save you! I got an A over summer (still have no idea how as I got a D in listening oops but I had two A*s and an A for the other sections) and it's down to quizlet and duolingo! Look up on quizlet your exam board e.g. "Aqa French gcse vocab" and you'll find all of the vocab on there (hopefully in different folders for each topic). I'm not sure if the new spec has different vocab but I know all of the old spec vocab is on there and someone made folders with it all in. You can do different activities with the vocab which is helpful. Also watch French TV/films/YouTube videos and listen to French music. Also get revision guides and workbooks as they can help a lot too! They'll probably been worksheets online to help with grammar and tenses and I reckon they're probably online lessons on like YouTube or something. Focus on your weakness e.g. For me it was listening so I focused more on that. Even if you don't get what you need for the test to be entered into higher, I'm sure they'll let you change if you push yourself as we didn't know until like idk March/April what we would be entered in for definitely.
Good luck! If it stresses you out or is boring, don't get discouraged as even though I got so worked up over it, looking back I weirdly enjoyed it all!

Reply 4

Danny7867

Original post by HollyFx

do you know what topics you are doing?

all of them

Reply 5

sanibonani

what exam board are you doing.if you're doing AQA the specification has all the related vocab listed so it should be the minimum of what you NEED to know including the specific verbs related to the topics

Reply 6

Danny7867

Original post by sanibonani

i am doing aqa

Reply 7

sanibonani

Original post by Danny7867

i am doing aqa

well yeah basically what i said before about the spec also use memrise there's a course called 'AQA GCSE French' it has all the words

Reply 8

username3028578

http://www.aqa.org.uk/subjects/languages/gcse/french-8658/subject-content/vocabulary

I found French easy did early entry in Year 9 got an A*... Present tense is pretty easy, you just gotta know the endings for each pronoun for the er, ir and re verbs. There are a few odd exceptions, such as avoir (to have), etre (to be) but you just gotta learn the endings. Future tense is also easy, all you gotta do for most verbs at least is add "ai" to the end. With re verbs you have to take off the "e" so for example Je pendre (I take) will become Je pendrai (I will take).

Reply 9

Danny7867

Original post by xoxofearlessgirl

how did u improve in listening

Reply 10

xoxofearlessgirl

Original post by Danny7867

how did u improve in listening

I watched a lot of French YouTube videos to get myself familiar to listening to French as they talk a lot faster than the gcse. Quizlet you could hear the vocab so I did that too. I'm honestly the worst person to ask about listening as I just can't hear French for my life but what did help was constantly going through quizlet vocab and I did a lot of past papers multiple times (it very much varied my grade on them). Just surround yourself in the French language as much as possible now so you'll be able to hear and pick up what they're saying.

Reply 11

Knox02

I have done a French gcse and got a very high B and honestly it was challegning but for vocabulary KERBOODLE is the BEST!!! If you have any spare time this is amazing to do and will dramatically improve your French if you do it regularly
. What I did was stick post it notes round the house of terms key terms you must know that I struggled with and also practised all exam past papers even if they were not on the exam board I was doing. In the exam papers I got A's but my controlled assessments were at a B. KERBOODLE will really help.

Reply 12

Carbon Dioxide

Original post by Knox02

Kerboodle is only available to schools on a subscription basis, as per the terms of the Oxford University Press. What if one's school can't even use Kerboodle, let alone the new Oxford textbooks?

Reply 13

Knox02

Original post by Carbon Dioxide

Kerboodle is only available to schools on a subscription basis, as per the terms of the Oxford University Press. What if one's school can't even use Kerboodle, let alone the new Oxford textbooks?

I'm sorry I didn't mean KERBOODLE I meant MEMRISE- and app you can get on your phone and when you have any spare time you can learn a ton of vocabulary!!! Honestly try it it helped me ace French !!! Memrise is the name