Any A-level French teachers around?

[BecauseImWoeufit]

DS1 will be doing his French AS level shortly, and his grades have suddenly plummeted. I want to work with him to help him revise over the EAster holidays.

Are there any good websites and/or other resources that you can recommend I try?

Main focus I think will have to be on his vocabulary, especially in preparation for his oral exam.

Anyone?

Do you have Sky? There is a channel called TV5 that has French programmes on. It's especially useful to watch the news, I found when I was doing A-level French. French newspaper/magazine websites are good. Does he have a particular interest? If he's into music/BMX/computer games etc there will be website in French devoted to them which might help him with his language skills - if you go into 'Advanced search' in Google you can return results from certain countries or in certain languages. From my experience of learning French, immersion in the language helped way more than doing exercises/

We have Virgin, not Sky - but thanks for the tip, I'll have a look to see what we have.

Thanks for replying!

watch French CArtoons on youtube. the language is generally sophisticated enough for AS/A level without being advanced enough to make it off putting for a lazy teen. not saying your ds is lazy...

Pocoyo for example has been translated into French, German, Italian....

he may like Asterix or TinTin too for starters.

French Radio.

Oh but he is lazy, foxy!
thanks

www.amazon.co.uk/Advanced-French-Vocabulary-Second/dp/0748757805

Has he got this? It is invaluable also try
www.wordprof.com which has vocab lists and tests you can do online for free

Which board is it? Maybe some ppl will have board specific advice /sites that you can use

It is sadly not unusual for grades to go down, as contrary to opinion this is a beast of an A Level.

They have to know all the noraml vocab we did and ok there is no complusory literature (but hey we wote all the essays in English!)no prose translation with tough (but pedictable) structures but they have to be able to read and listen to and conjur up marks from about 2 mins/20 lines of text 'in their own words'and the likely political/sociological/environmental/media vocab is huge....
The stimulus tasks can also be very idiosyncatic e.g. you worked for an environmental project/interviewed a famous french celebrity/wrote a news article about some social hot topic now respond to various question but on no account write more than 160 words!

2 french speaking girls whom I helped with retakes got Ds first time round on the AS Reading Comprehension!

Will have a think about other sites for you

Thanks very much!

Yes, this A level sounds a nightmare - the oral especially. And as DS1 is very shy anyway, speaking is always a torment for him.

I'm planning on working on the whole vocab thing with him, as my own French A level is so long ago my grasp on grammar is shaky to say the least!

www.amazon.co.uk/Help-Yourself-Advanced-French-Grammar/dp/0582329450

gorgot to post this too

It is a tough book ideally perhaps better suited to A2 but it has answers in the back and the grammar sentences are perfect for exam practice as they expect the student to maniulate the structure concerned using the topic vocab rather than the sort of thing from way back such as 'they they got into their cars and sped away at such a speed' 'my sister's friend's/friends'guinea pigs' and other such useful stuff !!

ooh i did find my french a-level tough going, even with my dad having french as a first language. we did a lot of literature. and the oral was dreadful. i remember being so worried as you had to have opinions on 'stuff' eg i was asked did i think tony blair (newly elected) would be good for the country...ffs!!! and then i had to talk about whether i thought there was such a thing as maternal instinct. christ it was awful.

Check the website for the board. i did a language As for fun a couple of years ago and discovered that by including certain features (eg a subjunctive verb, "advanced sentence structures") you could gain bonus marks that would lift you up a level on the mark scheme. So prepare 2 or 3 all purpose sentences that can be used in most contexts
eg if i were rich I would do x as this could be fitted in to most of the writing tasks. Also write out and memorise the oral presentation and practise delivering it so it does not sound memorised. practise some phrases for answers to questions likely to come up.
I know this might not improve his French, but it should boost his grade .
This is after all what many crammers would be doing.

This site has LOTS of interactive, specifically targeted at A level grammar exercises and some listening stuffGood A level grammar

This site has lots of links to other sites and some good worksheets (not sure about the other stuff - have been on mat leave a long time now!)lots of links

Last time I looked this site had lots of good videos if you don't want to spend ages searching for stuff on you tube
probably best for listening practise

A level Italian student I taught last year REALLY benefited from listening/ watching tonews in the language - a health warning - it did "fry her brain" to start with because it's "proper" french television but she got a lot better and has since told me it stood her in good stead for university TF1 news
This does have the headlines written down in French so you could work them out and maybe just try to listen specifically for those words to start with. Let me know if you need further ideas to help him with that (if it does prove useful)

And one final thing - it might be an idea to look through the speaking questions he has probably been given and if there are any that require an opinion on stuff that is out of the normal sphere of 17 yr old thinking (eg How has Sarkozy helped the current economic crisis? that's prob more A2 level from a mean teacher but you get my drift ) then talk to him about them in English so that he knows what he might like to say. I've met loads of kids who don't even know what they think in English so getting their ideas across in another language is impossible!

Hope this essay helps