French

Studying French

The French Department aims to introduce pupils to the French language and foster a love of its culture. The ability to communicate successfully in a foreign language makes pupils more confident in general and better at thinking on their feet. We are a lively, forward-thinking department and we aim to provide lessons which are fun, yet stimulating and challenging.

We are aware that our pupils have different experiences of the language. For this reason, we assume no prior knowledge. In our experience, pupils with little exposure to French have caught up with those who have learnt some by half-term in the First Year. Whether you have done a little or none makes no difference to your future prospects in French – enthusiasm and a willingness to have a go are more important.

In a fortnightly cycle, pupils will have three hours of French lessons in which they experience a variety of teaching methods. Once per cycle, each class benefits from the use of a multimedia language laboratory where pupils listen to recordings, speak to each other in French and record their own voices to analyse and improve their pronunciation. We encourage our pupils to interact with their teacher and each other in the language.

French in First Year

In the First Year we cover topics including classroom commands and greetings; descriptions of yourself, family and pets; the alphabet and numbers 1-100, including dates and the giving of directions. Topics are used to explore vocabulary and grammar: in the First Year we cover adjectives, possessive adjectives and prepositions.

French in Second Year

In the Second Year we consolidate our descriptive work, this time concentrating on town, school, clothes and appearance. We introduce more verb work including –ir and –re verbs; the revision of –er verbs based on the topic of sports and the study of irregular verbs and reflexive verbs. We learn to talk about the future and introduce the perfect tense. Avoir expressions are analysed around the topic of health, and the partitive article is studied in reference to food and drink.

French in Third Year

In the Third Year we couple verb revision with new vocabulary areas, such as leisure activities and the present tense; the description of a holiday in the past tense; discussion of careers in the future tense. A new area of grammar is the use of negatives. School, description of friends and everyday life are new topic areas which extend general language knowledge and proficiency.

Trips, Clubs and Activities

All First Year pupils have the opportunity to travel to France at Easter and take part in a week of activities. We offer a language trip to Paris for Fourth Year pupils and our Sixth Form students have the opportunity to undertake a period of work experience in Nantes. Our Ciné Club also regularly meets at the Cornerhouse Cinema to view the latest French films.