French

Common Unit

Unit Description

In the first semester of French, students learn to communicate using a variety of basic grammatical structures, including the verbs avoir and être, gender, adjectives, negatives, possession, pronouns and formal and informal registers. These enable students to communicate by speaking, listening, viewing, reading and writing on various topics.

• Personal identification.
• Numbers.
• Classroom objects.
• Introducing oneself and others.
• Music preferences.
• Nationality.
• Family.
• Adjectives.
• Definite and indefinite articles.
• The irregular verbs être (to be) and avoir (to have).
• The negative construction ne… pas.
• Possessive adjectives.
• Possessive constructions with the preposition de.

 

Significant time is devoted to practising speaking skills with the introduction of the alphabet and French pronunciation and intonation patterns. These are practised through role plays, dialogues and use of the target Language in the classroom.

In Semester 2, students extend their range of Language to enable them to write about and discuss the following:

• Pets.
• Food and ordering.
• Dates, time and seasons.
• Talking about birthdays and festivals.
• The placement of adjectives.
• The conjugation of regular -er verbs.
• Using multiple verbs in a sentence.
• More advanced grammatical structures introduced include plural forms of nouns, interrogative constructions, expressions of frequency, further regular and irregular verbs and the use of prepositions with articles.

Students are introduced to cultural aspects of the French-speaking world including greetings, gestures, family life, calendars and French food.

Assessment

• Formative vocabulary and grammar tasks.
• Aural and reading comprehension tasks.
• Oral tasks.
• Writing tasks.
• Cultural projects.

It is important that background information regarding students’ experience and proficiency in French is provided during the subject selection process.

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