Tips for teaching AS level french

 Teaching AS French 1 TIPS FOR TEACHING AS LEVEL FRENCH Useful sites for AS Listening and Reading practice http://www.languagesonline.org.uk/ http://www.monjtquotidien.com/ www.france24.fr http://www.tv5.org/ www.euronews.net http://www.rfi.fr/lffr/pages/001/accueil_
exercice_ecoute.asp http://www.realfrench.net/ www.tsr.ch http://recherche.france2.fr/?q=infograp
hie&site= http://fr.news.yahoo.com/ http://www.zigonet.com/ www.authentik.ie Definitely worth a look Jeux televises pour enfants France 24 : good for short news items TV5 has some good practice material; go to apprendre le francais section. This lets you read the transcript and hear the text. Some material is more suitable for A2 Euronews lets you read a report and watch the video Radio France Internationale ; exercises d’écoute Real French.net hosted by Manchester Met University French language TV news from Switzerland – the reports are spoken slightly more slowly France 2 has an excellent collection of ‘infographies’. These are high‐quality diagrams on a variety of topics. The languagecan be hard and technical but the visual quality is superb. With careful selection and exploitation, this is a useful resource. There are some good Football world Cup 2010 pages which could be used for oral discussion. Yahoo France has some good, short reading articles. Use the Insolite section and also Zigonet for some bizarre stories. Authentik magazine has a subscription service ( c ) Jon Meier, Verulam School 1 Advice for teaching AS Level 1.
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Don’t be a slave to a text book. Let the exam paper be your guide. Practise all question types and from March only do past questions. Show pupils the mark schemes, especially for the essay. Less is more: squeeze as much material as possible out of a text. Apart from comprehension and language manipulation tasks, the text could be a springboard for oral discussion and essay work. 5. The pupils should be learning actively. Don’t confuse doing with learning. Are your pupils simply doing something mechanically or are they actively learning, assimilating and embedding language and structures 6. Think of Year 12 pupils as Year 11s out of uniform. Don’t be too ambitious and don’t assume they know very much. Remember how little language they needed to get a reasonable grade at GCSE 7. Do a crash grammar course covering every major grammar area. At the same time, integrate grammar into the topic area/ text you are doing. 8. Start the course with something new to mark a break with GCSE. Good fresh topics to start with are: Media, smoking, drinking, advertising, celebrity culture, the internet 9. Vocabulary needs constant practice. Pupils should keep a vocabulary book with a record of words in context 10. As well as the exam question types, do plenty of traditional comprehension questions plus more open‐ended questions. Elicit views and opinions. 11. Ask pupils to make some up their own exam type questions. This will help to familiarise them with the tasks required in Unit 1 12. Ask pupils to write and present their own responses to a stimulus text‐ oral and written 13. Do listening tasks with plenty of written and visual support. Long blocks of spoken French are daunting for students and they need to be eased in to this gently. 2 Teaching AS French 3 AS Vocabulary tips 1. Teach the language of discussion and debate: à mon avis, par contre, il faut souligner que, il est néanmoins vrai que, en général, pour ma part, je suis d’avis que, pourtant, il est bien evident que, on pourrait dire que, j’ai l’impression que …, je suis d’accord avec… , il y a ceux qui pensent que … certains pensent que 2. Teach explicitly certain transferable vocabulary i.e. words which come up frequently at this level and which are not specifically topic‐based: augmenter, réduire, en hauuse, en baisse, s’intéresser à, efficace, inefficace, aimer mieux, dénoncer, critiquer, approuver, un avantage, un bienfait, un inconvénient, encourager, décourager, promouvoir, mettre en jeu, combattre, lutter contre, abolir, supprimer, même, grâce à, à cause de, pareil, permettre à quelqu’un de faire quelque chose, résoudre un problème, surmonter une difficulté, écarter un obstacle, il faut, il est nécessaire de, sensibiliser, mobiliser, l’opinion publique, le grand public, il y a ceux qui …., certains pensent/ estiment que, améliorer 3. Reinforce key genders: la question, le risque, le danger, le gouvernement , le problème, les autorités 4. Work on common errors: test and repeat rigorously (you can compile lists of common errors as soon as pupils start handing in written work). Adverb/ adjective confusion is a favourite area of error Vite / rapidement v rapide Mal / mauvais Bien / bon Meiux / meilleur 5. Teach early in Year 12: ce, cet , cette , ces 6. Do lots of work on word families: abus , abuser; comportement , se comporter ; lancer, le lancement; jeune, jeunesse ; fort, fortement ; mourir, la mort; réduire , réduction; ( c ) Jon Meier, Verulam School 3 AQA AS Model is as follows: Unit 1 Listening, Reading and Writing 2 hrs 70% of AS Unit 2 Speaking 30% of AS Level French Sample Unit 1 paper 09 is on key materials page of main AQA : http://web.aqa.org.uk/qual/gce/languages/french_materials.php?id=09&prev= Topic areas: loisirs vacances les medias, les célébrités , internet, la publicité le sport, la santé l’alcool, les drogues le tabagaisme la famille l’ amitié les conflits Common Question types in Unit 1 • Vrai / Faux / non donné • Corrigez les phrases • Remplis les blancs • Top and tail: match the end of a sentence to the start • Coche les cinq phrases qui sont varies • Qui …. E.g. A number of people give their opinions about a topic. These are summarised and candidates have to match the person to the summary • Traditional comprehension questions – who what where why which. Paraphrasing skills will need practising for this – use of synonyms. • longer summary answers in your own words The last section of Unit 1 is Essay writing – 200 words 4