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Language A Levels

I am planning to do French and Spanish A level at the moment. I was hoping you guys could tell me what the courses are like (my school uses the exam board Edexcel). For instance, do you still have to do things like role plays and is there more essay writing.
Any help would be great thanks!

Reply 1

BloodyValentine

French you have to be able to hold a discussion on 3 topics of your choice but the have to be related to france and you have a book thing to do on L'Etranger by Camus

Reply 2

kellywood_5

I've been doing AS-level French for half a term now and it's a hell of a lot harder than GCSE, but it's also more interesting. You have to get used to a very small class- there are 5 in mine, but usually only 2 or 3 of us turn up, which feels a bit uncomfortable and means you have to do a lot more speaking, but you also get more individual attention. In terms of topics, so far we've looked at peer pressure, the legal system, marriage and divorce. At the end of thie first year, you do a listening and writing exam, a reading and writing exam and an oral exam, and for the listening, you get individual control of the tape with headphones. The oral invovles preparing a topic on French culture or society, discussing it and answering questions on it. We haven't done any essays yet, but I think there are some at A2, especially if you do the coursework option. There's also a lot more grammar to cover.

Reply 3

Wagamuffin

Tom we do OCR for french; Edexcel French should be just like my russian. I have to do literature for A2 (short books) and there is essay writing for A2 as well (for AS you may have extended writing but it would be in a specific context eg: a formal letter or something). There is an oral, but edexcel don't seem to offer role-play anymore, only discussions! :smile:

Reply 4

smallthoms

My experience of French has been more or less identical to kellywood 5's - it is much harder and you do more talking, but you get more attention and a sense of satisfaction at being able to do the more difficult work.

I've found History quite good so far. The jump to AS doesn't seem to big to me. Most of the topics are quite modern and there's a lot of politics involved, so make sure you'll be able to enjoy that sort of thing.

Reply 5

kellywood_5

smallthoms

I've found History quite good so far. The jump to AS doesn't seem to big to me. Most of the topics are quite modern and there's a lot of politics involved, so make sure you'll be able to enjoy that sort of thing.

I don't really like history anymore, maybe because I'm not that interested in politics. That seems to be all we do and there's just so much information to try and get your head around. I think it's probably my worst subject now.

Reply 6

tash087

I do both French and Spanish on Edexcel. I've continued both on to A2 as well. For A2 you have more essays to do.
I think it depends on your school, whether or not you do coursework.
For example, in my school for French we don't do coursework but in the exam we have to do some more essays on a literature book (Sac de Billes, by J. Joffo), whereas for Spanish we do 2 pieces of coursework on 2 plays by Garcia Lorca and another Spanish issue.

Reply 7

G.A.K

french, i find hard to get into work mode, and switch from another language and engage. The grammar work stumbles me sometimes, and the small class (4) can be quite frightening as the teacher is more or less always with me. I suppose that has it's plus points though.
At A level you need to understand france itself a lot more, which can be boring/interesting (both really).
I do enjoy it most of the time, i just can't motivate myself.

Oh History, i seem to enjoy writing all of these essays which are constantly thrown at us. politics in British is rather boring at times, but i do American and thats thoroughly enjoyable. But as Kelly says, alot of ground to cover. I HAVE 3 text books!

Reply 8

Melanie47

tash087

We don't do coursework for languages at my school so that won't be a problem.

Reply 9

Cirsium

Hehe somebody else who decided that they enjoyed the subject without looking into it!
My decision to take German basically went:
Have chosen A levels
Hmmmm taking Computing not good (many reasons)
Oooo do i take Computing or not
amazing German lesson where the world just clicked and i understood everything
Deadline for AS applications
Mr Slevin can i change my application?!?!?!

Hehe i'm still trying to find out what i should be doing...

The key thing that i found @ AS is that you do a shed load of grammar in the first term or so which is pretty hard going but is well worth doing because suddenly it's like OOOOOOOO so THAT'S why it's der there, den there, dem there and des there!!!!! Once you get into it it's so much fun and you make sooo much progress so fast it's scary!!!

I'm on Edexcel and for us this is basically what we get:
AS =
3 modules:
an individual oral exam. You get 2 minutes introduction on a subject you research REALLY well and then you provide 10 subheadings and they have 10 mins to ask you questions about it
a listening + writing exam (a lot of GCSE type qs but obviously higher level - and some longer writing qs about what you hear)
A reading + writing exam (40 marks worth of GCSE style qs and then a 40 mark b*tch of a writing q @ the end)

At A2 it depends a lot on which topics ur teachers choose to do but you have to do a text (mine is about 100-150 pages long but you don't get to take it into the exam you have to learn quotes etc), and you have to do some history, and some other topics like animal testing and abortion and you have to write essays on all of them (the topic 1s r all very hot on your language things, the history ones r more concerned with the points you make and less so your grammar) and some interpreting (you have two teachers, one only spks english, 1 only spks target language and you have to help them to have a conversation) and a paper where you have to word for word translate a big text w/ perfect grammar + everything!!

(Btw we don't do coursework - if you do then you don't do the text i think)

Hope that that helps

Reply 10

em~t~the~ily

french is muchos crappos at the moment, unbelievable amounts of grammer, and so true about people not turning up to the frenchie lessons, ok the teachers are all a bit mean, but still...
German on the other hand, quite a bit of speaking, quite a bit of grammer, but pretty easy...
No exams in january either which is a bonus! (i hope!)

Reply 11

vinz

even though you'll find it's such a geeky class, languages are one of the coolest alevels you can do. classes aren't as small at my end, ~12 for AS this year, more people doing A2 actually. we're quite slow starting because we've just done our exchange on the recieving end, but it can be quite interesting. the fact you're doing it to as shows you have some interest and teachers recognise that. my lessons are very relaxed, the ability of the people in the class is mixed, but there's no feeling of hierarchy, essentially everyone makes mistakes which is the thing i was most concerned about. it's not the most popular subject, but one i'd say 10 fold more rewarding then those social sciences.