Teacher : Miss Marina Holzheimer / Ms Liliane Tiffaneau

 In giving our young people the opportunity to learn a foreign language, we aim to:

By the end of S4, you will have developed the skills of listening, reading, talking and writing in French, to communicate about a range of topics in the following broad areas:

Society – e.g. people, relationships; lifestyles, leisure; food, health

Learning – e.g. school, studying, plans for the future

Employability and citizenship – e.g. comparing jobs, work experience; money; practical situations (in shops, hotels, at work etc.); environmental issues

Culture – e.g. TV, films, books, music, people and places in French-speaking countries; travel, transport and holidays; comparing countries.

• You will listen to a lot of French spoken by your teacher and from CDs (including songs), TV, and films.  You will read a lot of French from books, magazines, brochures, notices, and from the Internet.
• These experiences will also help you to talk and write in French, often with a partner or in a small group.
• You will use computers to help you learn, through word-processing, language games, and websites from various countries.

The S1 course

Main language content

• Personal details
• Family
• Pets
• Personal descriptions
• School timetable and subjects
• Numbers 1 – 60
• Expressing opinions
• Telling the time
• Classroom language
• The school day- routine and activities
• Clothing
• Sports and other pastimes
• Weather and seasons
• Where I live
• Ordering food and drink
• Shops and directions

Main grammar content

• Nouns: gender and number
• Definite articles
• Indefinite articles
• Possessive adjectives
• Adjectives: agreement
• Personal pronouns
• Verbs: avoir, être, faire
• Negative statements
• Regular  –er  verbs
• Colours – masculine, feminine and plural forms
• Regular –ir verbs
• The verbs lire and écrire
• The partitive article (du, de la, de l’, des)
• Adverbs of time

Assessments

• Pupils will be taught several new words every week, adding them to their word bank and practising them at home.
• They will regularly learn to spell a number of French words and will keep a record of their progress in spelling tests.
• Pupils will produce short written pieces about themselves.
• They will give oral presentations to the teacher, using notes based on their written piece.
• They will learn to have a conversation in French with the teacher.
• With a partner, they will take part in short role-plays.

The S2 Course

Main language content

• Describing yourself and others
• Talking about where you have been and what you have done
• Names of countries
• Talking about clubs and activities you are involved in
• Daily routine
• The 24-hour clock
• The cinema
• Arranging to go out
• Parts of the body
• Aches, illnesses and remedies
• Food, meals and shopping
• Travel and transport
• A visit to Paris

Main grammar content

• Prepositions for to and at
• Linking words
• The perfect tense
• Asking questions
• Reflexive verbs
• Modal verbs: present tense and conditional tense
• The imperative
• The partitive article (reinforced)
• Negative expressions
• The verb aller
• The simple future tense

Assessments

• Pupils will be taught a number of new words and phrases every week, adding them to their word bank and practising them at home.
• They will regularly learn to spell some of the new French words and will keep a record of their progress in spelling tests.
• Pupils will produce written pieces about the topics covered.
• They will take part in conversations with the teacher and give short presentations.
• They will take part in role-plays in a pair or a group.

S3 and S4

In S3 and S4 pupils build on and extend their competence in the four skills of talking, listening, reading and writing.  All pupils, whatever their ability, can succeed within the courses on offer. Tasks are always tailored to their individual strengths and weaknesses.

They will be exposed to an increasing range of written and spoken material including e-mails, poems, songs, films, short stories, newspaper articles and news reports. These will be drawn from a range of Francophone countries. Learners will meet and be expected to use a wider range of language. A higher degree of complexity and accuracy will be expected as they progress. They will demonstrate increasing independence as the level of support is reduced and texts contain more unfamiliar language. They will use dictionaries and computers to support and enhance their learning.

We recommend that all pupils should have access to a suitable bilingual dictionary to help them to do their homework satisfactorily and to prepare adequately for assessments in which they will use a dictionary. We recommend:

Collins essential French Dictionary and Grammar   ISBN 978-0-00-733154-3

The new National courses

Central to the courses – at all levels – is a degree of communicative competence.

Contexts and topics

Society	Family and friends Lifestyle Media Global languages citizenship	Employability	Jobs Work and CVs
Learning	Education	Culture	Planning a trip Other countries Celebrating a special event Literature of another country Film and television

 

Requirements for National 5 French

Internal assessments	Using language: one piece of writing one conversation Understanding language: one reading comprehension one listening comprehension
External assessments	A reading and writing exam (The candidate has to write a letter in French applying for a job.) A listening exam A final test of talking: a presentation followed by a conversation

 

Requirements for National 4 French

Internal assessments

Using language: two pieces of writing two conversations Understanding language: two reading comprehensions two listening comprehensions Assignment (Added Value Unit): This involves reading, talking and listening as well as some research, and allows the candidate a degree of personal choice.

 

Requirements for National 3 French

Internal assessments

Using language: two pieces of writing two conversations Understanding language: two reading comprehensions two listening comprehensions

 

Useful links

http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/
This site gives all kinds of different acivities, usually linked in some way to the TV programmes they produce, but you don’t need to watch the programmes to use the site.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/revision/
BBC Bitesize Revision – Standard Grade French
This is where to find theBBC BitesizeRevision sites.

http://www.linguanet.org.uk/
Mainly for teachers, but some materials for pupils as well

http://www.allo-languages.org.uk/
A general site for different languages, but with a French section and other links.

http://www.ashcombe.surrey.sch.uk/Curriculum/modlang/index_students.htm
This site belongs to Ashcombe school. It has a lot of interesting pages for different subjects, including French.

Wild French

French partner school: Collège de la Dombes, Route de Meximieux, 01390 Saint-André-de-Corcy, France