Vive la France!
Building up a good vocabulary and plenty of practice are important in preparing for the French exam, writes Yeats College teacher Stephanie Keane
The Junior Cert Higher Level French paper is made up of the following sections. I have included an approximate time to be spent on each question. Allow 10 minutes to read over your work! Do not leave any answer blank in the listening comprehensions or the reading comprehensions. You never know, you might be correct!
THE LISTENING SECTION
In addition: 1. The CD with your Junior Cert papers contains the listening comprehensions. When you place it into your computer, an option will come up to view the scripts for each year. Print off the scripts.
2. Now you can practise at home with the Junior Cert papers. Try to do two sections a week. Then once you are done you can check your answers in the script. Following that, listen to the section again, this time with the script in front of you.
3. Pull out vocabulary and place this vocabulary into a vocabulary copy. Vocabulary is key in this part of the paper as the same words tend to come up over and over again.
4. Attempt each question - don’t leave blanks.
READING COMPREHENSIONS
You should be completing a couple of comprehensions each week from the Junior Cert papers in class or yourself at home. Improving comprehension skills comes from practice, practice, practice. While you’re doing these comprehensions you should have a vocabulary copy and transfer into that any word that you had to look up in a dictionary. You should be learning 35 new words a week. I also highly recommend translating one comprehension from French to English every week. This will greatly improve your comprehension skills. Attempt each question - don’t leave blanks!
VOCABULARY
As I’ve stressed throughout this article having a good base of vocabulary is essential. In addition to pulling vocabulary from your reading and listening comprehensions, you should have vocabulary for the following categories. This vocabulary should be available in most textbooks (sometimes at the back of the book).
J’ai du mal à la* main – I’ve a pain in my hand. Je me suis cassé(e) la main – I’ve broken my hand. J’ai la main dans le plâtre – My hand is in plaster. J’ai la grippe – I have flu. * Note that body parts typically don’t take the possessive adjective eg: Mon, Ma, Mes