French/German AQA GCSE Help

Hi @harfan654! I found the listening part the hardest at GCSE too- but don’t worry, with practise it got much easier for me!
I’d say that the main thing is exposing yourself to the language as much as possible. There are lots of ways to do this:
1. Find practise papers from your exam board, and do as much listening practice from those as you can/want to. Then, mark it yourself by listening to it again, this time with the transcript. Only once you’ve done this should you then look at the mark scheme. This might sound like a slow process, but trust me, it makes listening so much more beneficial! There’s no point just marking it with the answers as you won’t learn as much as you will by actively listening to it again and (hopefully) understanding more the second time when you can read the transcript along with it.
2. Listen to French podcasts/watch French movies and tv shows. This is a great option if you’ve got a busy schedule- you can listen to them on walks/runs to break up your revision, or even on the way to school. Then, when you get home, you could make a list of all the new vocab and create a dictionary- that way you expand your vocab too. Just think, if you listen to one every day on the way to school up until your GCSEs, you’ll get lots more listening practise and vocab, and it doesn’t take much time out of your day! Some recommendations for podcasts/radio: France inter (https://www.radiofrance.fr/franceinter), conversations mise à jour (https://cmaj.coerll.utexas.edu), France bienvenue (https://francebienvenue1.fr). They all come with transcripts and options to slow the tracks down!
Some film/tv recommendations to watch with English subtitles if you need: Les Intouchables (prime), lupin (Netflix), Amelie (prime) Ratatouille (Disney or prime).
3. Download apps like LingQ or Speechling. With these, you can get access to lots more listening questions. Some of it might be a bit past gcse level, but if you slow it down and give it a go, it could be really good to improve your listening confidence.
Finally, some general tips:
1. Make sure you know the exam board key vocab super well. This may sound obvious, but if you don’t know this, there’s no point even attempting to listen if you can’t understand key words.
2. When listening, try not to translate each individual word in your head- instead identify the overall meaning. I know this is easier said than done, but if you try to do it word by word, you can get bogged down on words that you may not understand. You’re never going to understand every word in the exam, part of the skill is being able to piece together what you do know to get an overall picture.
3. If you get time to read through the questions beforehand, try writing down any key words you might be listening for to make it easier. For instance, if it’s a question on sports and you have to assign a sport to a person, you could write down the French for each sport so you can listen for it more easily.
4. Lastly, don’t panic if you don’t understand it the first time! Take a deep breath and really focus on what you think it might be trying to say. If you’re really not sure, just take a guess- it’s only one question, move onto the next one and try your best. Remember- lots of the questions are multiple choice or even true or false, so you’ve got a good chance of getting it right.
I hope this helps- let me know if you have any other questions! And good luck for the exam I’m sure you’ll be amazing!