Secondary school students in Ireland have many choices when it comes to foreign languages.
These include languages like:
- Irish
- English
- Ancient Greek
- Arabic
- French
- German
- Hebrew
- Italian
- Japanese
- Spanish
- Russian
The one we're looking at today is the most popular choice for the Leaving Cert; French.
While the number of students taking a foreign language for Leaving Cert is in decline, French is the most popular with German, Spanish, Italian, and Polish on the rise.
In this article, we'll be looking at why you should study Leaving Cert French, what the exams are like, what aspects of French are covered, and how to do well in your Leaving Cert French oral exam.
Why You Should Study Leaving Cert French
French is regularly called the "language of love", but there are more than romantic reasons for studying Leaving Cert French.
There are many reasons to study a foreign language, but even more reasons to study one that's widely spoken both inside and outside of the EU.
French is spoken in France, but it's also spoken in these countries:
- Belgium
- Benin
- Burkina Faso
- Burundi
- Cameroon
- Canada
- Chad
- Comoros
- Côte d'Ivoire
- Democratic Republic of Congo
- Djibouti
- Equatorial Guinea
- Haiti
- Luxembourg
- Madagascar
- Mali
- Monaco
- Niger
With 450 million French speakers in the world, becoming one of them will greatly increase your job prospects in countries where the language is spoken and for jobs that deal with people, organisations, or companies that operate in French.
Some jobs prefer or require applicants to have foreign language or French language skills. These include translators, interpreters, holiday resort staff, diplomats, cabin crew, and French teachers, of course.
While reading and writing skills are important, speaking is arguably the most important language skill. All languages developed as spoken languages before developing their written form and French is the same.
Reading and writing are usually easier skills to develop for most students since you have the time to read and reread and to correct what you write, but speaking is essentially "live" and you don't get too many chances to make mistakes, which can make students nervous.
However, speaking a foreign language is the most rewarding part of it and being able to use your language to speak to other speakers of the language is why you should take the time to get good at it, not just to do well on your Leaving Cert French oral exam!
The Format of the Leaving Cert French Exams
The Leaving Cert French exam is made up of three main exams: written, oral, and aural.
The latter is often called the listening exam because oral and aural are pronounced very similarly or identically and it just makes things confusing.
The written exam tests both reading and writing skills and is worth 55% of your total grade in Leaving Cert French. The aural exam counts for 20% and the focus of this article, the oral exam, is worth 25%.
This means that each of the four skills is worth close to a quarter of your marks (give or take 5-10%), making each of them fairly important. You can't ignore any of them and should split your revision between them.
However, you could say that the oral exam has some "easy marks" that you could pick up. None of the marks in any of the exams are "easy", but relative to the amount of study and preparation needed to get said marks, the oral exam offers some low-hanging fruit for you to pick up and improve your results.
Since the oral exams are conversational, you have some control over the conversation and can guide it towards getting more marks. You can't just prepare a speech, though.
However, if the conversation is moving away from areas you're confident about, you do have ways to keep the conversation on a topic that you're more comfortable with.
It makes sense to spend time learning the structures and phrases that will help you stay in control of the conversation.
The Topics on the Leaving Cert French Oral
Since the Leaving Cert French oral exam is quite conversational, its structure isn't as fixed as the other exams.
You'll be asked basic personal questions that you'd be asked at the start of any typical conversation, with the exam lasting just 12 to 15 minutes, you won't have too much to talk about. That said, a 15-minute conversation in a foreign language will often feel much longer than this, especially if you're underprepared.
The best way to know what you'll need to talk about is by asking your teachers and by looking at the syllabus for the Leaving Cert French (which you can find online).
These topics can include things like describing yourself, talking about your daily routine and how you spend the weekend, family, friends, housework, where you live, what you study, and even elements of French culture.
The Leaving Cert French oral exam also allows students to bring in le document, which is effectively a prompt, conversation starter, or even a way to give yourself vocabulary prompts.
The document can be a page from a magazine, an article, a photo or image, or even literary text. It has to be entirely in French, though and it can't be part of another object like a water bottle.
The student brings le document into their exam and can talk about it with the examiner during the second part of the exam. Don't underestimate how useful this can be since it's the part of the exam that you have the most control over, meaning you can prepare for it way ahead of the exam.
This can boost your confidence, get you back on track if you get lost, and even just keep the conversation flowing. It's also another way that you can control the conversation by bringing in something that will guide the conversation towards the topics you're comfortable talking about.
How to Do Well in Your Leaving Cert French Oral Exam
Within the 25% of your total Leaving Cert French mark, the oral exam is further divided up.
The mark scheme is as follows:
- Pronunciation: 20%
- Vocabulary: 20%
- Communication: 30%
- Structure: 30%
Structure covers things like your grammar, syntax, and how your sentences flow.
While it shouldn't dictate exactly how you should study, these percentages can help you better allocate your study time. After all, you'll want to spend around a quarter of the time you spend revising French working on the oral exam.
During the time you spend preparing for the oral exam, you could spend around 20% of that time working on your pronunciation, 20% of that time on vocabulary, etc.
Of course, you should focus on your weakest areas first as these are the areas where you can gain the most work with the least effort. After all, the better you are at something, the harder it is to get even better since the law of diminishing returns often applies.
Pronunciation is something quite easy to work on as you can do it almost anywhere. While we don't recommend disturbing people on the bus by practising your French Leaving cert vocabulary lists, there's no reason you can't put on a podcast or a listening exercise and practise your pronunciation while exercising in the house, for example.
After all, there are plenty of great online Leaving Cert French resources you can use to help you.
It also helps a lot to practise doing the oral exam. Get in the habit of answering unexpected questions because they'll likely come up during the exam.
Remaining calm and not panicking at unexpected questions will help you a lot. Remember that simple things like taking a breath before answering, buying yourself time by acknowledging the question, and formulating your answer in your head before you start speaking can all help you with your communication and structure.
Get Help with Your Leaving Cert French on Superprof
On the Superprof website, there are tutors for every subject and skill you can imagine, including Leaving Cert French.
Just search for French tutors on the site and you'll be able to start browsing the profiles of the tutors. On their profiles, you can see how much they charge, what they specialise in, what their other students have to say about them, and whether or not they offer their first lesson for free.
You can use these free sessions to try several different tutors before choosing the right one. After all, every student is different and a tutor that works for one student mightn't necessarily work for another.
Even if you can't find any local tutors, you can always broaden your search to include online tutors. As long as you have a webcam and a decent internet connection, you can prepare for your French oral exam with tutors from all over Ireland and around the world.
If you need help with pronunciation, why not look for French native speakers?
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