French Project

chickens

I was wondering about the french project for the leaving, i have been to france and I was thinking of doing it about that but I heard that's not a good idea beacuse it's to easy. Have any of you guys heard this to? Thanks.

Matthewthebig

What project?

seriously!

chickens

Sorry that is waht I thoughtit was called. you take it onto the Oral and you talk about it. Have you heard of it? I bevieve it's optional.

Irishstabber

There is a French project??? Why havent I heard of this before :eek:

Edit* Ah yes that...You can take a picture in too and talk about it. I'll be doing that.

chickens

Yes that's the one, what is it meant to be called?

bounty_hunter

It's called a "document", and yes, it is optional.

The only problem with doing it on France is that there are an unlimited number of questions you could then be asked about France (the examiner can interept you at any point if they feel like it), and you might not have the answers to them.

I made the mistake of saying I went on holiday to France in a panic and it all went downhill from there.

chickens

Oh thanks you.

I am not sure what else I could do, but as you say it is a broad topic, would it be better to do something like "the eiffel tower" or something? Thank you again.

angeldelight

chickens wrote:

I am not sure what else I could do, but as you say it is a broad topic, would it be better to do something like "the eiffel tower" or something? Thank you again.

Can I ask are you doing Honours level French? If you are and you start speaking about it you could actually end up in a horrible conversation about landmarks in other countries, leading to the spire in Dublin etc. The examiners tend to think that if you mention something, you'd like to talk about it despite the fact you may have just mentioned it because it was first thing that came into your head. If you want to learn all that extra vocab that's no problem and you'll get the marks. If however you feel like you already have enough French to learn why don't you bring in a family photo? Preferably one of you on holidays. Then you get to speak about your family, where you went on holiday, did you like it etc, a lot of general vocab that you'll already know

Don't forget for the oral, simple correct french pronounced as correctly as you can along with a few more complex phrases will impress the examiner much more than lots of half right complex phrases which make you panicked because you can't remember them.

bounty_hunter

Edit: In reply to Chickens. I actually started typing this about 15 minutes ago and forgot about it

The only thing with that is you'd have to learn off an awful lot of information just about the Eiffel Tower, which wouldn't really be much fun (unless it's your thing, of course).
And they could just as easily say something like "Oh yeah, Eiffel Tower... now describe everything else you saw in France" or something equally as broad.

What you could do though is show a picture of you and your family/friends/whoever you were with in France and try to very specifically direct the conversation in the direction of how you got on with them while you were there/family arguments over where to eat/what to see, etc. and just vaguely mention the tourist sites and things you saw (such as the Eiffel tower, since you seem to like that idea) before they can ask you anything too major on them.

Be warned though, if you mention a holiday, especially a holiday in France, you absolutely have to be prepared for questions about every aspect of it. Like I said, your best bet is to just try and initially steer the conversation in a direction you're comfortable with. Though most people find that examiners will ask about holidays anyway, so it's maybe just as well to talk about them in the first place

abercrombie

i cant wait for my french oral....100% here i come!!!!

chickens

That sounds like a nice idea thank you. I'm not usre I have a family photo but I will certainly make sure to get one I can say it was in france. Thank you for your help.

I think your right about doing something interesting, learning pointless vocab that I can never use again is the last thing that I want to do!

Thank you again.

Gazza22

Yeah the document is a very good thing to use. It will put you at ease because it will be something you have prepared before the exam.

But don't be fooled, you won't be able to take up a large chunk of the exam on this. It will be used by the examiner for the last minute or two of the exam when they are comfortable they throughly examined your level of oral french.

If you have been in france and have a picture, bring that with you. Be prepared to say what happened that day, where you were ect.

abercrombie

i dunno what i'm gonna bring in but i know i'll be fine anyway

Call Me Jimmy

Tip : If your french is strong it really isn't necessary, only if you are weak to average.

I think people spend way too much time on this than is necessary.

angeldelight

Call Me Jimmy wrote:

Tip : If your french is strong it really isn't necessary, only if you are weak to average.

I wouldn't necessarily agree. I went into my oral knowing I was going to get an A1 but it was still a nice relief to get off the abstract topics and back onto the simple ones, purely cause it's a stressful situation and you wouldn't believe the things you'll say when you're in there!

abercrombie

wel i'm basically fluent in the language as my grandmother is french and has been speaking to me since the day that i woz born!!! My mum is fluent in it too coz she's half french so i can easily practise with them if i have too!! i love french

chickens

Thats brillient for you - one exam you can look forward to!! My french is fairly weak so I think I will use the project. The problem is that our teacher writes all this stuff out fineticially (as you say it) and she's got this really strange accent (no idea where she's from but she sounds like that gerry adams man), so there's me in my little accent going :eek: I can think of the words but to saythem is a bit off! Still pleanty of time to fix that!

abercrombie

yeah theres plenty of time for you to improve...what i think you should do is do a little bit of french a night, even if it's only 5 mins and you just practise reading a paragraph or something! thats what i started to do for my irish coz i'm not as confident about that

bounty_hunter

If you've got French tapes/CDs, it really helps to listen to them at night while you're going to sleep. The sound of the language will sink into your head even while you sleep. Same goes for any other language aswell.

Gazza22

abercrombie wrote:

wel i'm basically fluent in the language as my grandmother is french and has been speaking to me since the day that i woz born!!! My mum is fluent in it too coz she's half french so i can easily practise with them if i have too!! i love french

Vous devriez visiter le forum français ! Nous apprécions de bons parleurs français!

Call Me Jimmy

I advise you guys to LISTEN to french as much as possible (sky digital comes with tv5 channel 825) and don't stop right away because you can't really understand much, just listen and watch, i found it helpful.


PS : abercrumbie, is your name Max in real life?

abercrombie

Call Me Jimmy wrote:

I advise you guys to LISTEN to french as much as possible (sky digital comes with tv5 channel 825) and don't stop right away because you can't really understand much, just listen and watch, i found it helpful.


PS : abercrumbie, is your name Max in real life?

g pense pas! g sui une fille!!!!

oh god that looks so bad! gotta forgive me but i always write in txt tlk...i've gotten so used to it from tlking online to my cousins and stuff!

je ne pense pas! je suis une fille! lol

tip for everyone doing the leaving...french people don't say "ne"...as in je NE pense pas...just because it's too long. But in the oral the examiner WILL penalise you if you don't put it in so remember that! You have to be awfully correct in the exam while still sounding natural. c'est juste un petit peu du conseil pour tlm (tout le monde... si vous NE comprendez pas)

bounty_hunter

Schools don't teach French the way it's actually spoken in France, I doubt many people will have to worry about that.

abercrombie

bounty_hunter wrote:

Schools don't teach French the way it's actually spoken in France, I doubt many people will have to worry about that.

wel just incase you've ever been to france, watch french tv or been to Eurolanguages even because all the anims, teachers and managers there speak the way french people speak (mostly because they are all french...but there are a lot of irish staff there too!)

just a word of warning anyway!

Call Me Jimmy

oh g sui desolee c'est juste que je connais un homme dans votre situation.

I agree with aber about not many people knowing how to speak like actual french natives do and thus won't be too badly penalised, but don't go in there with yer dub/cork/kerry etc. accent, put a bit into it.

abercrombie

oh d'acc...c'est bon LIKE! omg when i woz working in ELC this summer it woz so funny coz all the students put in the word "like" whenever they would speak and all the frenchies thought this woz HILARIOUS! they were asking me what exactly it meant and the best i could come up with was "eh ben"! what do you think???

Call Me Jimmy

c'est dificile a expliquer comme.... En fait, g ne peux pas

abercrombie

okie dokie! i think i'll ask my mum....perhaps she'll know!!