French

Assessment

The A Level courses cover a range of linguistic, literary and cultural topics. Themes such as the family and popular culture are studied in Year 12, extending skills developed at GCSE in listening, speaking, reading and writing. In Year 13, the themes move away from GCSE and are more focused on the country whose language they are studying, such as immigration and integration. At A Level, either one film and one book, or two books are studied. In addition, A Level students undertake an individual research project on something which has been of interest to them in the A Level course. Although the study of literature may at first appear a little daunting, the experienced staff team chose the texts or films with a view to their accessibility and with students’ interests in mind. Grammatical work is important at A Level, as the only way to become a truly competent user of a language is to understand its grammar and to be able to apply it in any situation; grammatical work is not overbearing, however – it is taught in a thorough but regular and manageable way. There are three examinations at the end of the course. One of these is a speaking test, which is conducted by either one of the class teachers or an external examiner before study leaves, leaving only two further papers to sit. One examination tests listening, reading and writing skills as well as grammatical knowledge. Unlike GCSE, the listening material is provided on CD for the student to listen to as many times as they like. The second examination paper provides an opportunity to write about the book(s) and/or film which have been studied.