For secondary school students in Ireland, hearing the term "Leaving Cert" might instil fear or panic. Students will look to earn as many points as they can by doing as well as they can in the subjects they choose.
Students need to juggle several subjects and several exams in said subjects, looking to maximise their performance in each exam. One of the best ways to do this is by working out your strengths and weaknesses to work out which areas would be the easiest to improve.
For many students, the listening or aural component of their foreign language exams is one such weakness. With languages, reading and writing are generally easier because they're not "live". You have time to read and reread a paragraph or correct what you've written, but in a listening or speaking exam, you may hear something once or twice, and then have to put down an answer or respond.
French is the most popular foreign language for Leaving Cert students since English and Irish aren't counted as foreign languages. In recent years, other languages like German, Spanish, Italian, and Polish are becoming more popular. However, foreign languages are becoming less popular for Leaving Cert students.
In this article, we'll be focusing on French and the Leaving Cert French Aural exam, which is also referred to as the listening exam.
Why You Should Study Leaving Cert French
French is a beautiful language that many people enjoy simply because of how nice it sounds. While it mightn't sound nice to you while you stress over it in the Leaving Cert French aural exam, it remains the most popular foreign language chosen.
Students choose French as a foreign language because it's widely considered to be quite a useful language. It's spoken by many people around the world and in many different countries around the world. Most students will choose their Leaving Cert subjects based on a mix of their interests and the overall utility of the subjects they choose.
This is where career decisions come into it. Students need to pick subjects that will further their career prospects and that means choosing subjects that will get them into their university of choice or provide them with employment options once they've finished their education.
French as a subject will leave the door open to a lot of other academic options, with many universities offering the language alongside non-linguistic subjects like business or law, but to get there, you'll need to get through the Leaving Cert first.
Remember that with the Leaving Cert, the listening exam is adapted specifically to the students, covering the topics they're expected to know and slower and clearer than a native French speaker would talk.
The Leaving Cert French Exam Structure
There are three main parts to the Leaving Cert French exam and the Junior Cert French exam:
- The written exam (reading and writing)
- The aural exam (listening)
- The oral exam (speaking)
The weighting of the four skills (reading, writing, listening, and speaking) is almost equal, with the oral exam accounting for 25%, aural 20%, and the written exam (including both reading and writing) covering 55% (30% reading, 25% writing).
As this article focuses on the aural (listening) exam, we're looking at 20% of your Leaving Cert French result.
Your listening exam takes place on the same day as your written exam and is technically the first part. The first 30 minutes of the exam will cover listening comprehension and then you'll be given a break (10 minutes) before sitting the longer written exam.
Listening sections are repeated either 3 or 2 times depending on the section of the exam, with pauses in between. You must get used to the information you need to be listening out for as listening exams in every language like to throw in distractions.
Everything from French culture to everyday conversations about friends, school, the weather, etc. can come up on the Leaving Cert French aural exam.
How to Do Well on the Leaving Cert French Aural Exam
The Leaving Cert French marking scheme states that students can receive penalties for providing too much information that invalidates the answer. The questions are generally looking for specific answers so read questions carefully.
It's very easy to misread a question that says something like "Which of these is not" and give the wrong answer because you didn't read the prompt properly.
You can take notes, scribble down what you think you hear, write what you should be listening out for, and try to go back to answer the question once you've worked out what was said. Remember that you'll hear every part at least twice so use the second time to listen closely to the part that you think has the information that you're looking for.
You'll find that most comprehension activities for the aural exam follow a fairly similar structure. It's your job to work out exactly what the question is asking for and to attempt to predict the marker words that will let you know when the speaker is about to give you the key information you're looking for.
Don't forget that listening exams sometimes throw distractions in to make the exams more difficult. You might be asked what somebody's plans are for the weekend and hear them say that they're going to the beach, only to find out it's going to rain, negate that statement, and say something completely different.
Train Your Ear to Listen to French
If you have an ear for French, you'll find the Leaving Cert French aural exam much easier. The best way to train your ear to French is by regularly listening to French being spoken, especially with examples that use the vocabulary you'll need to know.
Look for online resources to help you practise the Leaving Cert French listening exam. You can find past papers, sample listening activities, etc. to train your ear.
You can improve your vocabulary by reading the papers (in French, of course), listening to French audio files like songs, podcasts, and audiobooks, and watching YouTube videos in French.
The more exposure you get to the French language, the better your comprehension will become.
Get Help with the Leaving Cert French from a Private Tutor
Whether you're struggling with listening, speaking, reading, or writing in French, a private tutor could help.
The main reason anyone struggles with a subject or skill is because they're not being taught effectively. In schools, every lesson is a compromise between each student's ideal learning approach, with the teacher looking to get the best results from their students overall, not each student individually.
This isn't to say that teachers aren't trying to help each of their students, it's just that they only have a limited amount of time to teach their students and prepare them for their Leaving Cert. If they could spend every lesson with just one student, they could adapt every activity and the overall teaching approach to them.
This is exactly how private tutoring works. By working with just one student, every minute of every session can be optimised to teach the student in the way that works best for them, focusing on the areas they need to improve the most. Students can also ask questions if they don't understand something, stop the lesson to spend more time focusing on a difficult topic, and even completely change topics if needed.
The Different Types of French Tutoring Available
You can search for private tutors on the Superprof website. There are three main ways you can be tutored in French: face-to-face, online, or in groups.
Each type of tutoring comes with advantages and disadvantages so it depends on how you like to learn and how much you're willing to pay.
Face-to-face tutoring is usually the most effective as the tutor is there in the room with you to provide help. However, since they usually travel to their students, they tend to charge more than the other tutors.
Online tutoring is usually cheaper since tutors don't have to travel and can schedule more lessons each week, but some students find that they don't learn as effectively when they're talking to someone over the Internet. By broadening your search to include tutors from all over the world, you'll be far more likely to find French native speakers to help you develop your ear.
Last but not least, group tutoring is usually much cheaper than one-on-one tutoring since every student is paying for the tutor's time. This does mean that group tutoring can encounter the same kinds of problems as the classroom teaching students receive in their schools, but smaller groups can minimise the negative effects while also providing students with small groups of peers to practise their language skills with.
Since most of the tutors on the Superprof website offer their first lesson for free, students can always try a few before choosing which one is right for them and their preferred learning style.
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