Subject Update
Guidelines for Parents
A basic outline Years 1 - 8
Year 1 and 2
- Songs, games and role plays, simple reading, writing, listening and activities from La Jolie Ronde course. A fun introduction to the language.
- No prep virtually no tests
Year 3
- Songs, games, role-plays, simple reading, writing, listening activities and saynets from La Jolie Ronde course (including simple grammar concepts, structures)
- A weekly vocabulary learning prep which is tested and recorded.
Year 4
Encore Tricolore Nouvelle Edition Bk 1 (Year 4)
Year 5
Encore Tricolore Nouvelle Edition Bk 1 (Year 5)
Year 6–8
Boys will always have a weekly vocabulary test and be asked to spend 10/15 minutes on www.languagesonline.co.uk for further practice of the topic in hand. The course is based loosely on;
Encore Tricolore Nouvelle Edition Bk 1 (Year 5 and 6)
Encore Tricolore Nouvelle Edition Bk 2 (Year 6 and 7)
Encore Tricolore Nouvelle Edition Bk 3 (Year 8)
The boys sometimes work directly from these books in class and they can be puchased from any language bookshop such as Grant and Cutler in Gt Marlborough St ( You may like to purchase one to use as a point of referece at home)
Boys in Years 6-8 follow the syllabus as described in the curriculum outlines which you can navigate to on the left-hand navigation menu.
The Exams
Year 3-8
• All boys in Year 3-7 do a “grammar, structures and vocab paper”
This paper contains representative samples of the material that the pupils have covered so far in their respective academic year. The paper is sat twice – once as an open book test; it is then corrected and re-done as a more formal test in exam conditions. The aim of this paper is to simplify the learning process so that pupils are not over-faced with a whole exercise book of work to revise, but it does ensure that key items from the year are revisited and thoroughly revised and embedded in the long term memory!
• In addition to the above paper:
All boys in Year 3-5 are examined twice a year in 2 other skills (listening and speaking)
Boys in Year 6 and 7 are examined twice a year in all 4 skills (reading, writing, speaking and listening) in tests that reflect the nature of the final CE exam.
• Boys in Year 8 do not sit a “grammar” paper – instead, they sit actual CE exams – the practice exams in November, the mocks in March, the actual listening and speaking CE exams in May and the actual CE reading and writing exams in June.
• The reading and writing exams always take place either with or just before the main school exams in November and June.
• The listening and speaking tests take place in the week before the other papers.
What do the papers in the 4 different skill areas consist of?
Reading – A reading comprehension paper.
Boys have to respond to texts in a bariety of ways with gap-filling /matching or answer questions in French or English
Writing – Pupils will have to write sentences, letters or short articles in French.
Listening – A listening comprehension paper
Pupils respond to audio stimulus and respond as in the reading paper
Speaking
Year 3-5:
Pupils answer straight forward questions in French (they are prepared for this in class and learn by heart for prep)
Year 6 and 7:
Pupils prepare between 2-4 role plays and write speeches which will be used for their CE speaking in Year 8
Year 8:
Pupils will have prepared speeches on the following topics (2 are written/re-drafted in Year 8):
Life and Work at School
Personal Describtion, family friends and pets
House, home, daily routine and chores
Free time and holiday activities
The above topics are started in Year 6, then embellished and refined in Year 7 and 8. In the exam pupils choose their favourite speech to perform and the examiner (the teacher) chooses the other, 10 minutes before the exam, so all 4 need to be prepared beforehand. Pupils speak for about a minute and then the examiner will ask 4/5 questions which generally lead the candidate into the next section. Once learnt, these speeches provide very useful material for the writing exam.
Time Allocation
We are lucky at Arnold House to have quite a generous time allocation for teaching French:
Year 1 and 2 – 35mins per week
Year 3 and 4 and 5 – 3x 35 mins per week
Year 6 - 4 x 35 mins per week
Year 7 and 8 - 35 mins per week