Faculty of Modern Foreign Languages

French

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Guide to A Level French (Edexcel)

Minimum recommended entry requirements:
Grade A in the corresponding GCSE is strongly recommended. However, for AS Level a Grade B will be acceptable.

If you wish to study two foreign languages at A Level you should get two As or A*s at GCSE and a recommendation from your individual teachers.

Advanced Subsidiary (AS)

Unit 1 Listening and Writing (1 hour AS 30%, AL 15%)

Candidates will be required to listen to authentic recorded target language material; they will be required to retrieve and convey information by responding to a range of mainly target-language questions and by producing personal responses in the target language and a guided summary in English.

Unit 2 Reading and Writing (2 hours AS 40%, AL 20%)

Candidates will be required to read authentic printed target-language material and to retrieve and convey information by responding to a range of mainly target-language questions. Candidates are also required to write a response in the target-language (a letter, report or article) based on a short printed target-language stimulus.

Unit 3 Prepared Oral Topic (10 – 12 minutes AS 30%, AL 15%)

Candidates will be required to prepare a topic dealing with an aspect of culture and/or society in the relevant country and, using brief target-language notes, to discuss the topic with the Examiner.

Advanced Level (A2)

Unit 4 Oral Discussion of Issues (15 minutes, AL 15%)

Candidates will be required to present an issue relating to the culture and/or society in the relevant country and to discuss it with the examiner. They will be required to adopt a definite stance towards the issue and to defend their opinions. Thereafter they will be required to hold a conversation that will move away from the chosen issue into predictable areas.

Unit 5 Topic or Text (Coursework - 1½ hours, AL 15%)

Candidates will be required to submit two pieces of extended target-language writing, one of 500 words and the other one of 1000 words on a choice of topics related to the target-language country/culture, in which they demonstrate that they have undertaken extensive reading from a number of target-language sources.

Unit 6 Listening, Reading and Writing in Registers (2¾ hours, AL 20%)

Listening and Writing (45 minutes)
Listen to authentic recorded target-language material and to retrieve and convey information by answering target-language questions in the target-language and by producing a summary in English.

Reading and Writing
Read authentic printed target-language material and to retrieve and convey information by responding to target-language questions. Candidates will also be required to respond to a stimulus for an exercise requiring a short translation from English into the target-language.

Writing in Registers
Candidates will be required to respond to one question chosen from either Creative Writing or Discursive Essays or Task-based Assignments.

In the Lower and Upper Sixth, you will attend a Language Conference in London costing in the region of £15. In the Upper Sixth, you will be asked to subscribe to an Authentik magazine costing around £11.

Most of the language work will be a continuation of the type of work done at GCSE. The topic areas are, however, much wider: Day to Day Issues and Events, Society and Culture, Citizenship and the Environment, The Working World and The International Context. Lessons will be in the target-language. A Level students will study either two literary texts/topics or two non-literary topics or a combination of one literary and one non-literary topic. You will learn to discuss and write about these in the target-language. During examinations you will have no access to dictionaries and texts. Since oral work is of prime importance, you will be offered the opportunity of having conversation lessons in small groups with the foreign language assistants.

If opportunities for Work Experience arise, students are strongly advised to take part in such a project.

We hope that all students who choose to study a foreign language after A Levels should seriously consider doing two foreign languages preferably at A Level (or at A and AS Level). It is possible to do a language degree from scratch, but the combination of any two languages at A Level is the basic requirement of many well regarded language courses at University.

The careers languages lead to are wide-ranging: apart from teaching and interpreting, in 1999 28.8% of language graduates joined business services, 11.7% health, community and Social Services, 11.6% banking and finance, 10% secured a job in manufacturing, 9.4% in wholesale and retail sales, and many other areas of employment requiring language skills, which nowadays are forever increasing due to globalisation.

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