tutoring

A-level french

A-Level French complete content and assessment objectives

Social issues and trends
Students must study the following themes and sub-themes in relation to at least one French-speaking country. Students must study the themes and sub-themes using a range of sources, including material from online media.

Aspects of French-speaking society: current trends
Students may study all sub-themes in relation to any French-speaking country or countries.

• The changing nature of family (La famille en voie de changement)
• Grands-parents, parents et enfants – soucis et problèmes
• Monoparentalité, homoparentalité, familles recomposées
• La vie de couple – nouvelles tendances
• The ‘cyber-society’ (La « cyber-société »)
• Qui sont les cybernautes?
• Comment la technologie facilite la vie quotidienne
• Quels dangers la « cyber-société » pose-t-elle?
• The place of voluntary work (Le rôle du bénévolat)
• Qui sont et que font les bénévoles?
• Le bénévolat – quelle valeur pour ceux qui sont aidés?
• Le bénévolat – quelle valeur pour ceux qui aident?

Artistic culture
Students must study the following themes and sub-themes in relation to at least one French-speaking country.

Artistic culture in the French-speaking world
Students may study all sub-themes in relation to any French-speaking country or countries.

• A culture proud of its heritage (Une culture fière de son patrimoine)
• Le patrimoine sur le plan national, régional et local
• Comment le patrimoine reflète la culture
• Le patrimoine et le tourisme
• Contemporary francophone music (La musique francophone contemporaine)
• La diversité de la musique francophone contemporaine
• Qui écoute et apprécie cette musique?
• Comment sauvegarder cette musique?
• Cinema: the 7th art form (Cinéma: le septième art)
• Pourquoi le septième art?
• Le cinéma – une passion nationale?
• Evolution du cinéma – les grandes lignes

Aspects of political life in the French-speaking world
Students may study all sub-themes in relation to any French-speaking country or countries.

• Teenagers, the right to vote and political commitment (Les ados, le droit de vote et l’engagement politique)
• Pour ou contre le droit de vote?
• Les ados et l’engagement politique – motivés ou démotivés?
• Quel avenir pour la politique?
• Demonstrations, strikes – who holds the power? (manifestations, grèves – à qui le pouvoir?)
• Le pouvoir des syndicats
• Manifestations et grèves – sont-elles efficaces?
• Attitudes différentes envers ces tensions politiques
• Politics and immigration (La politique et l’immigration)
• Solutions politiques à la question de l’immigration
• L’immigration et les partis politiques
• L’engagement politique chez les immigrés

 Grammar

AS students will be expected to have studied the grammatical system and structures of the language during their course. Knowledge of the grammar and structures specified for GCSE is assumed. In the exam students will be required to use, actively and accurately, grammar and structures appropriate to the tasks set, drawn from the following list. The mention of an item in this list implies knowledge of both its forms and its functions at an appropriate level of accuracy and complexity. The examples in italics in parentheses are indicative; they serve to illustrate the part of speech or structure that the student must know and do not represent an exhaustive specification of the required grammatical knowledge. For items marked (R), receptive knowledge only is required.

Nouns
Gender
Singular and plural forms

Articles
Definite, indefinite and partitive

Adjectives
Agreement
Position
Comparative and superlative
Use of adjectives as nouns (e.g. le vieux, les Anglais)
Demonstrative (ce, cet, cette, ces)
Indefinite (including autre, chaque, même, quelque)
Possessive (mon, ma, mes, etc)
Interrogative and exclamatory (quel, quelle, quels, quelles)

Numerals
Cardinal (eg un, deux)
Ordinal (eg premier, deuxième)
Expression of time and date

Adverbs
Formation of adverbs in -ment
Comparative and superlative
Interrogative (including combien (de), comment, où, pourquoi, quand)

Quantifiers/intensifiers
(including assez, beaucoup, moins, plus, la plupart, plusieurs, presque, tant, très, trop)

Pronouns
Personal: subject, including on Object: direct and indirect
Disjunctive/emphatic personal, as subject and object: moi/moi-même, etc
Position and order
Reflexive Relative (including qui, que, dont, lequel etc, auquel etc, ce qui, ce que)
Demonstrative (celui, celle, ceux, celles; and celui-ci/celui-là etc)
Indefinite (including quelqu’un, quelque chose)
Possessive (le mien etc)
Interrogative (including qui, que, quoi) Use of y, en

Verbs
Conjugation of regular -er, -ir, -re verbs, modal verbs, principal irregular verbs, including reflexive verbs
Agreement of verb and subject
Use of il y a
Modes of address (tu, vous)
Impersonal verbs
Constructions with verbs
Verbs followed by an infinitive (with or without a preposition)
Dependent infinitives (faire réparer) (R)
Perfect infinitive
Negative forms
Interrogative forms Use of tenses:
• present
• perfect (including agreement of past participle)
• imperfect
• future
• conditional
• future perfect
• conditional perfect
• pluperfect
• past historic (R).
Use of the infinitive, present participle (eg en arrivant) and past participle Verbal paraphrases and their uses (including aller + infinitive, venir de + infinitive)
Passive voice:
• present tense
• other tenses (R).
Subjunctive mood: present (common uses, for example, after expressions of possibility, necessity, obligation and after conjunctions such as bien que)

Prepositions
All prepositions, both simple (eg sous) and complex (eg au-delà de)

Conjunctions
Coordinating conjunctions (eg et, ou, mais)
Subordinating conjunctions

Negation
Use of negative particles (eg ne…pas, ne…personne, ne…que)
Use of ne with negative subjects (eg Personne n’est venu)

Questions
Commands
Word order

Inversion after speech

Other constructions
Time expressions with depuis and il y a
Comparative constructions
Indirect speech

Discourse markers
(eg Au contraire, En fait)

Fillers
(eg alors, bon)

Works

Literary texts and films
Students must study either one text or one film from the list below. Abridged editions should not be used.

Texts
• Molière Le Tartuffe
• Voltaire Candide
• Guy de Maupassant Boule de Suif et autres contes de la guerre
• Albert Camus L’étranger
• Françoise Sagan Bonjour tristesse
• Claire Etcherelli Elise ou la vraie vie
• Joseph Joffo Un sac de billes
• Faïza Guène Kiffe kiffe demain
• Philippe Grimbert Un secret
• Delphine de Vigan No et moi

Films
• Les 400 coups François Truffaut (1959)
• Au revoir les enfants Louis Malle (1987)
• La Haine Mathieu Kassovitz (1995)
• L’auberge espagnole Cédric Klapisch (2002)
• Un long dimanche de fiançailles Jean-Pierre Jeunet (2004)
• Entre les murs Laurent Cantet (2008)

Assessment details

Assessment Objectives
  • AO1 Understand and respond: • in speech to spoken language including face-to-face interaction • in writing to spoken language drawn from a variety of sources
  • AO2 Understand and respond: • in speech to written language drawn from a variety of sources • in writing to written language drawn from a variety of sources
  • AO3 Manipulate the language accurately, in spoken and written forms, using a range of lexis and structure
  • AO4: Show knowledge and understanding of, and respond critically to, different aspects of the culture and society of countries/communities where the language is spoken. Across assessment objectives AO1 and AO2, no more than 10 % of the total marks for the qualification may be used for responses in English, including translation into English.