Year 12

Welcome to Year 12 French at Jumeirah College

It is estimated that French is spoken by 76 million people as a native language throughout the world and by about 280 million people as a second or third language. French is the official language in 31 countries throughout the world and has significant speakers in 54 countries.
The AS French course will enable students to develop and build on the skills acquired at GCSE. The course will provide an insight into French culture and society and provide students a sound basis for further study. The AQA specification has changed and September 2008 will be the first year of teaching the new AS French specification.

Students will study four main topic areas:
• Media:    TV, advertising and communication technology
• Popular culture   cinema, music and fashion / trends
• Healthy living /  lifestyle  sport / exercise, health, well being and holidays
• Family / relationships  relationships within the family, friendships and marriage / partnerships

 

Curriculum Organisation
• Students receive 6  lessons of French per week plus an additional hour intensive speaking practice with our French assistant
• The work covered is from the textbook ‘Elan nouvelle edition’. This is supplemented with authentic reading articles taken from newspapers and magazines, worksheets, online exercises and web based research.

Independent Study
• Homework will be set at the end of each lesson.
• All homework and deadlines will be recorded in students’ planners.
• Homework should be completed to the highest standard and presentation should follow the department’s guidelines.
• It is obligatory that students use language websites to consolidate language / grammar covered in class and to research the topics thoroughly and independently.
• Our library is stocked with a number of French books and magazines which provide extension activities for our students.

Assessment and Reporting
• Ongoing informal assessment will take place in class throughout the year in all four skills (reading, writing, listening and speaking).
• Selected pieces of written work will be assessed according to the AQA marking criteria
• Mock exams will take place throughout the year.

Formal Assessment
The AS specification has two units

Unit 1: listening, Reading and Writing

Externally examined

Written paper: 2 hours
Weighting: 70% of total AS – 35%of total A level mark

Students will answer a range of questions based on approximately 5 minutes of heard material and on a selection of written stimulus texts. They will also respond in writing to a question based on one of the AS topics.

Unit 2: Speaking test

Speaking: 35 minutes (including 20 minutes preparation time)
Weighting: 30% of AS – 15% of total A level marks

Students will discuss a target language stimulus based on one of the AS topic and         take part in a conversation covering 3 further AS topics

Yearly overview
As this is the first year of running the course the following is an estimation only and will depend on the ability levels of our students.

Autumn term

Bridging the gap / Passerelle

• Speaking about the area where you live
• Speaking about yourself
• Account of someone’s life

Media
• Television
• Advertising
• Communication technology
• Grammar: present tense, genders and numbers, adjectives, articles, depuis + present, possessive adjectives

Popular Culture
• Cinema
• Music
• Fashion / trends
• Grammar: prepositions, passive, imperative, venir de, adverbs, perfect tense

Spring term

Healthy living / Lifestyle

• Sport / exercise
• Health and well being
• Holidays
• Grammar: comparatives, superlatives, imperfect tense, synonyms, antonyms, modal verbs, verbs that take a or de, negatives, partitive article, conditional tense, present subjunctive

 

Family / Relationships

• Relationships with parents
• Friendships
• Marriage / partnerships
• Grammar: Emphatic pronouns, pluperfect, future tense, y and en, demonstrative  adjectives, relative pronouns, present participle

 

Summer Term

• Once the content of the course has been completed, the remaining time will be used for revision and for practising examination skills

 

Extra Curricular Opportunities

• Language revision classes
• Blogging / emailing students at our partnership school in Poitiers
• Taking part in inter school language competitions
• Regular visits to the Alliance Francaise (French Alliance) in Dubai which is a resource centre for the French language. The Alliance also holds French cultural events and language classes for students of all ages.
www.afdubai.com

• Completing an intensive French language course in Europe. Please see Ms Strawford for details.

 

 

 

 

Useful websites

www.europeinfos.com
www.mediajunior.com
www.CALL@Hull
www.bonjourdefrance.com
www.tv5.org
www.rfi.fr
www.zut.org.uk
www.linguascope.com
www.frenchteacher.net
www.jde.fr
www.google.fr
www.fr.yahoo.com
www.ados.fr
www.lesclesjunior.com
www.radiofrance.fr
www.bbc.co.uk
www.touslesmedias.com
www.realfrench.net

 

Newspapers and magazines

A large number are available on line

http://corumcle.edres74.ac-grenoble.fr/presse/pressefr.htm

(provides a link to all major French newspapers)

 

Grammar / Vocabulary books

Recommended self study grammar books:

La grammaire en clair – Rogers and Long (Nelson)

Help yourself to advanced French – Ribiere and Marriott (Longman)