French book recommendations

moriz

I want to do higher level French for my leaving cert that I'll be doing next year. The problem is that in my year there's only a couple of people doing higher level with like 3/4 of the class doing ordinary. We haven't got a higher level book at all and I doubt we will be getting one. I'm confident in sticking with honours and would like to buy a book and study myself.
So, I wanted to ask could those of you guys who did higher level French, or are doing it atm, tell me what book you are using? Preferably just one book for the whole leaving cert if you know what I mean, no two separate book things..

Canard

Hey, alternative opinion coming through. :P
We didn't use a textbook in my class, our teacher just gave us handouts. We got a new teacher in 6th year and I think she just didnt want to make us buy them so late, but she was awful and not having a book was bad in that way, but if your teacher's notes aren't bad I think you'd be okay. I used http://french.about.com and other websites to study French and it was pretty handy, it was nice not using a book, it felt like less of a chore.

Though I understand that a book is nice to have so feel free to ignore this. :P

moriz

Patchy~ wrote: »

Hey, alternative opinion coming through. :P
We didn't use a textbook in my class, our teacher just gave us handouts. We got a new teacher in 6th year and I think she just didnt want to make us buy them so late, but she was awful and not having a book was bad in that way, but if your teacher's notes aren't bad I think you'd be okay. I used http://french.about.com and other websites to study French and it was pretty handy, it was nice not using a book, it felt like less of a chore.

Though I understand that a book is nice to have so feel free to ignore this. :P

We probably won't have the same teacher we had last year so I don't know what our teacher is going to be like you see. Our old teacher only had decent enough grammar notes. That's all she did with us anyway. I'm just worried for my oral and written pieces and I'd love to do some listening from a book as I'm not really feeling the straight out of exam papers thing, if you know what I mean.
Thanks anyway! I'll check out that about.com thing

Sheedy07

Ya we got notes handed out to us too but we also used the book triomphe au bac which I personally thought was really good. There was a section designated purely for the oral with pieces on all the tricky abstract pieces such as racism drugs etc included and loads of notes on written sections.

Canard

Yeah the oral's awkward without a book, I ended up having to go without a document. It wasn't really a problem but I was a little annoyed that I wasn't able to do what most people do.

And yeah I think we used to do aurals from a book but I can't remember, we did use the exam papers very often though. French music is great for it and its really catchy, you get used to hearing it fast and you learn new words and phrases. It's not everyone's cup of tea but I found it fun.

Sheedy07

Patchy~ wrote: »

Yeah the oral's awkward without a book, I ended up having to go without a document. It wasn't really a problem but I was a little annoyed that I wasn't able to do what most people do.

And yeah I think we used to do aurals from a book but I can't remember, we did use the exam papers very often though. French music is great for it and its really catchy, you get used to hearing it fast and you learn new words and phrases. It's not everyone's cup of tea but I found it fun.

I brought a document in but the examiner kind of forgot about it and I brought it up too late so that was an error on my part but a document is really handy.

As for the aural we used the exam papers going back as far as we could but we also got a transcript for after so we could read what we were listening to which was a great help. The french music wasn't something I did but I did try to watch the news in french and there is a channel on sky for general french tv shows and stuff which is really good.

I think thats my part said but anyway best of luck in it and in the rest of the leaving cert.. its not the end of the world. its the waiting for results that is:P..

Sunny!!

triomphe au bac enough said!! theres a rapid revision 10 week book as well which is very good!

Togepi

Triomphe au Bac has a section on grammar, vocabulary, proverbs, verbs, written questions, the oral and the aural, with a listening CD and all. Brilliant book, I definitely recommend it, especially if you just want the one book!

Edit: Oh and it's got plenty of both types of comprehensions and exam-style questions on them too, everything you need is in it really!

K_1

Triomphe au bac/bac superieur are good.

Don't go near tout va bien, biggest heap of sh!te ever published!

BellaVerita

I found Bien Dit good for the oral. The rapid revision book for French is brilliant though, would recommend it to everyone.

iLikePiano99

K_1 wrote: »

Triomphe au bac/bac superieur are good.

Don't go near tout va bien, biggest heap of sh!te ever published!

Are they the same book? Because I can't seem to find Bac Superieur.

Sunny!!

iLikePiano99 wrote: »

Are they the same book? Because I can't seem to find Bac Superieur.

Triomphe au bac is just an updated version of Bac Superieur

iLikePiano99

Sunny!! wrote: »

Triomphe au bac is just an updated version of Bac Superieur

Thanks for that.

For those of you who have used this book, is it necessary to have the Teacher's CD with it as well or is the student's CD enough? Are all of the listening exercises on the student's CD or are some of them on the teacher's? Anyone know if edco allow student's to have the teachers CD?

Thank you!

CookieMonster.x

We have Tout Va Bien and my teacher hates it. The layout of comprehensions aren't like the Leaving Cert and neither are the aural pieces. We use Le Francais Oral for oral and it seems ok, there are some nice sentences in it.

Namlub

I used Tout Va Bien a grand total of once when I was revising, for letter/diary layouts. Other than that, it's pointless because the topics it covers are too basic for the written paper...

lauz94

I'd definately recommend Triomphe au Bac,it is the revised edition of Bac Superieur

moriz

lauz94 wrote: »

I'd definately recommend Triomphe au Bac,it is the revised edition of Bac Superieur

Thanks guys! I think I'll be getting that Triomphe au Bac and will also look into getting the Rapid Revision