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Grade 9 in French AMA

deltagolf

AMA, got a 9 in French, but not doing A-level French btw though I was going to.

Reply 1

E3student

How did you get the grade 9? What revision techniques did you use?

Reply 2

Hazelly

Study Forum Helper

What made you choose not to do French as an a level?

Reply 3

Ðeggs

I got a grade 9 in GCSE french and german as well! (Full marks in French actually)
What part of the GCSE did you enjoy the most? I liked the writing exam :biggrin:

Reply 4

E3student

Original post by Deggs_14

I got a grade 9 in GCSE french and german as well! (Full marks in French actually)
What part of the GCSE did you enjoy the most? I liked the writing exam :biggrin:

How did you get a grade 9 in French? I usually get about a 6 and can’t seem to get any higher

Reply 5

15drai

I do Eduqas French and I find the listening exams the hardest - how do you revise for them?

Reply 6

Ðeggs

Original post by E3student

How did you get a grade 9 in French? I usually get about a 6 and can’t seem to get any higher

I think the two biggest things for GCSE languages are vocab, and practicing questions. I would recommend making vocab quizzes on Quizlet, I used those a lot, or you can create flashcards with specific vocab words on them. Having ones for speaking, and writing helped as well, like certain phrases which are more unique. Instead of saying “selon moi” or “de plus” all the time, it’s excellent to vary vocabulary saying things like “par ailleurs”, “de surcroît”, “en ce qui me concerne”. Varying of tenses and person in speaking and writing, don’t say “ I did” all the time, make sure you’re confident with the present, perfect, imperfect, conditional and proper future, and near future in all conjugations. Remembering your common irregular verbs, and then just practicing lots and lots of questions. I did all of the AQA old spec papers and even did ones from other exam boards as there weren’t that many. Other things you can do are watch french you tube videos, or translations of films you know the words to in French.

Anyway good luck, PM me if you want some specific advice or help, I’m happy to help you :smile:

Reply 7

deltagolf

Original post by E3student

How did you get the grade 9? What revision techniques did you use?

I guess French was the subject that I had revised for the longest. At the start of Year 10 my teachers told me I had to go to French intervention so I used to go to French intervention for the whole of Year 10 where we mainly focused on grammar. So I’d say it is good to start off by nailing grammar because having done this in Year 10 had drilled the grammar into my head so that eventually I knew the French grammar off by heart. What you should do is learn the conjugations for IR, ER and RE verbs in the present tense off by heart and you should see when you look at verb conjugations in other tenses you may notice a pattern. It is also very useful to learn the present tense conjugations for avoir and être off by heart because these are the most commonly used verbs in the French language, they are also often used as auxiliary verbs in other tenses. In terms of patterns one I can say is that in the future tense it’s almost like sticking on the present tense form of avoir on the end of the infinitive. For example, saying ‘I will watch’ in French is ‘je regarderai’ which is like the infinitive with ‘ai’ added on which is the je form of ‘avoir’. It is also vital that you can differentiate between the future and near future and the past perfect and imperfect as knowing these well saves a lot of marks in exams. Remember that the future is ‘will verb’ and the near future is ‘going to verb’ while past perfect is ‘I have (e.g. eaten, seen, ran)’ and imperfect is ‘I used to (e.g. eat, see, run)’, both tenses can also be translated into English as I ate, saw, ran though and you will know this by context and by that feeling of when it is appropriate because what is French may not always directly translate into English. It would also be nice if you can use the conditional and pluperfect tenses in your exams. Superlatives are also nice to use such as le plus, le moins, mieux. When I say grammar that also includes correct sentence formation and placing of words.
In Year 11 I could spend my time focusing on other skills such as expanding vocabulary or perfecting writing. It is good to find other words to use rather than sympa all the time. So I used to look at the French Thesaurus online or wordreference when I was doing homework and wanted to use different words. During this time I still went to French intervention. Then you can also look at learn complex phrases off by heart and other nice stuff. Also in the writing exam when you do the 90 words and 150 words you want your piece to have a sort of central theme running through so that it doesn’t seem all over the place. What I mean to say is it needs to be clear what you are talking about and everything should relate as this will improve communication, quality and content marks. This should also be taken into consideration in the speaking exam. For example if the 90 word task is about vie scolaire’ then ensure you address each of the four bullet points and that it is related to school life not one sentence about going to la campagne avec la famille. I remember the 150 word task I chose in my exam was about holidays so I said I went on holiday to Morocco and my whole piece was about the holiday to Morocco with extended opinions and about what I experienced there and stuff (obviously I made it all up on the spot). I was lucky in that my school helped us a lot during our GCSEs so like with the speaking exam we chose our general conversation theme and Miss showed us dome questions she could ask us for our theme so we chose like 4 and she asked us those in the exam we just had to prepare really good answers and if we spoke long enough on then she may not even cover all the questions before we moved onto the other theme for the GC, I remember she only asked me 3 before going to the unprepared section. Remember the speaking exam is where you have most control. I chose the theme about environment as did most in my class because it was the hardest meaning that that theme won’t come up in the rest of the exam where we would have to come up with high level answers on that theme on the spot, basically the easier themes that I was more comfortable with were left for me to talk about freely.
Like I said before I was lucky in that school offered a lot help so do utilise this help as much as possible if your school does so (same applies for other subjects) because I found that it helped me so much in all subjects. But yeah don’t stress over it and you’ll be fine. I think key points to take from what I have written is to nail tenses and grammar and work on expanding vocabulary so you can express and justify opinions on varied ways.

Reply 8

deltagolf

Original post by Hazzabear

What made you choose not to do French as an a level?

My story is that I originally applied to do Maths, Physics, Geography and French at A-level. During results day and enrolment I was abroad so school enrolled me to sixth form on my behalf. When I started on the first day and first got my timetable I saw that French was not on the timetable. Then I asked the appropriate staff if French could be added and they said okay. When I went home I told my mum what happened and she said well if they say 4 A-levels is a lot of hard work then you don’t have to do French and I kind of had a change of mind and called college to say I’d like to revert back to my original timetable. If I was to do French then I would probably do Maths, Physics and French but then I have this passion for Geography and like if I don’t do Geography then I won’t be doing me. I want to keep maths and physics because I think the combination is quite secure and it does guide you into career paths like engineering for example. I also guess that I don’t want to 4 A-levels. I’m looking to continue learning French out of school (my mum suggested this and actually she is nagging me to do this). There is an institution called Alliance de Française who teach French with whom I would like to apply with to learn French (eventually lol). So yeah that’s kind of how it went for me, I also don’t like the sound of having to do a book and film review. However I would like to spend one year in France, Wallonia or Brussels with the Erasmus programme when I go to university and have my course taught in French that year. But I do really still want to be fluent in French and it’s quite sad that 4 people from my French class may get better at French than me because they chose A-level French. I was the only 9 in French from my school then another guy got a 9 after a remark but French came to him naturally as his mother tongue is Portuguese but he’s not doing A-level French either. The downside of deciding not to do A-level French is that I have to do an EPQ because at my college everyone does either an EPQ or Level 3 Core Maths alongside their A-levels unless you do 4 A-levels. EPQ is a pain.

Reply 9

deltagolf

Original post by Deggs_14

I got a grade 9 in GCSE french and german as well! (Full marks in French actually)
What part of the GCSE did you enjoy the most? I liked the writing exam :biggrin:

Nice to see another person from the Grade 9 French club and well done on that 9 in German too. I think I liked all the exams tbh. I found the reading and speaking exam easy. I did AQA. Also on the listening exam there was one part where the audio was at a restaurant and you had to listen carefully and I remember they said truite which sounded like trout and I was right. I just remember everyone in my class found that part hard but I came out of the exam like that was actually nice lol.
What A-levels/equivalent level 3 qualifications are you doing?

Reply 10

Ðeggs

Original post by deltagolf

Haha the French Grade 9 Club - love that!
I'm studying French, Geography and Chemistry to A2, and I did Maths AS last year as well :smile:

Reply 11

deltagolf

Original post by 15drai

I do Eduqas French and I find the listening exams the hardest - how do you revise for them?

Hi I did AQA. For listening I’d say it’s best to pinpoint the pronunciation of the different tenses because most of the time they all sound the same. This will actually help a lot. Also when we finished the course (which was like February) we did a lot of listening practice in class and at home I even did some past listening papers then marked them. My CGP revision guide had a disk with a listening exam on which I did. I think listening was the one I revised for the least out of school though. In class we used to do active listening where miss would play something like information video Un jour, une question was a common site she used with videos we listened to then we had to make notes while listening and then we answered some questions about the video. I actually only watched one French movie during my GCSE and I kept switching between French and English subtitles. Another activity we often did was listen to French songs and fill in the missing lyrics.

Pinpoint pronunciation of different tenses and do practice listening papers.

Reply 12

redmeercat

Original post by 15drai

I do Eduqas French and I find the listening exams the hardest - how do you revise for them?

Hey, I'm doing A level French and listening is now one of my favouorite parts, although I hated it at GCSE!

1. Listen to French music. You won't udnerstand everything but you'll get used to listening to the languages and to picking out words that you know. The same goes for podcasts and the news.
2. Use kerboodle etc to do practice exercises.
3. TV with English/ French subtitles
4. Make French friends and talk to them on the phone. Harder to put into practise but if you have the opportunity I'd certainly go for it.

Just generally keep testing yourself and practising. It's hard, but learning your vocab and doing it regularly should put you in good stead todo well :smile:

Reply 13

Ðeggs

Ooh yes, I’d recommend Mylène Farmer and Céline Dion, they’re 1980s/1990s Music is the best. Or more modern music of the 2010s by Maître Gims or Stromae

Reply 14

Ðeggs

Or classic Édith Piaf

Reply 15

redmeercat

Joe Dassin and Zaz are also good.

Reply 16

deltagolf

I quite like Kendji Girac and Claudio Capéo too.

Reply 17

username4353408

what did you get in your mock

Reply 18

deltagolf

Original post by John_7

what did you get in your mock

I think we had 3 sets of mocks before our GCSEs. At the end of Year 10 in the mocks I got a 7 then in the mock in like the winter term of Year 11 I got an 8 and then I got an 8 again in the next mock where I was 3 marks from a 9. I started Year 10 with getting 4s and I wasn’t the best in my class.