French Oral

Patri

Generally does anyone know how people get on in it??? How can you prepare and how difficult is it???

ShamrockGirl

I done my french oral two years ago.
Preparing for the oral, you should begin with basic first year information
-Name, DOB, where your from, hobbies, sports,
-Describing your town- rural, urban, activities, tourist attractions.
-Hobbies- Sports, Reading, Socialising.

What ever you provide for these the examiner will note/memorise and more than likely direct their questions towards those topics.


But Note don't discuss something you don't want to talk in detail about.

eg. if you bring up loving sport especially basketball, training three times a week..... - BE PREPARED FOR THEM TO ASK ABOUT THE BENEFITS OF SPORT TO PEOPLE'S HEALTH.

Hope that makes sense!!

readystudypass

Pages 5 to 13 give a useful insight into the french oral

http://www.examinations.ie/archive/examiners_reports/cer_2006/LC_French_06_Edit.pdf

DaveMur1

Do they know in the french & Irish orals if our doing honours or pass?

QueenOfLeon

DaveMur1 wrote: »

Do they know in the french & Irish orals if our doing honours or pass?

They definitely don't know for Irish, not too sure about French. They're all marked out of the same anyway in case you drop down after the oral.

readystudypass

DaveMur1 wrote: »

Do they know in the french & Irish orals if our doing honours or pass?

" place the names of the pupils [...] in order of merit according to the schools' estimate of their proficiency in Oral Irish/French/Ger....use the symbols A.L, G.L, B.L and M signifying respectively Higher Level, Ordinary Level, Foundation Level and Mixed classes. Marks, however should not be awarded"

http://www.examinations.ie/schools/S_78_10_Leaving_Certificate_Oral_Tests.pdf

Grindylow

I did my pre French oral with another French teacher in school two weeks ago.. I got 72%, but the highest given was 82%, so it was a fairly good result. She said she wasn't giving any As because then people would think they'd already done all of their work. What I did was prepared pages on each topic, ie:

Page 1: Myself:
- Your name
- Your age (When you were born/Where you were born)
Je suis née a Waterford il y a dix-sept ans = I was born in Waterford 18 years ago..
- Your nationality
Je suis Irlandais = I'm Irish
- Your description of yourself (Hair colour/ Eye colour/ Height/ Description of your personality [make sure you know this one, it's usually asked..])
Comme vous pouvez voir = As you can see.. Then just add in a description.
Je suis de taille moyenne = I'm of normal height

Page 2: My area:
- The name of your area (How far away from your house, and your nearest town it is..)
- Facilities of your area (Just a basic description of what's there.. pubs/shops, etc)
- Do you like your area? Are there any problems there?
- Will you miss the area if you move away for college?
- Do your friends live near you?

..I'll post up the rest later if you want.. That's just the first two!

TigerIsa

I got an A1 in higher french last year (did my LC in 2010) and i am in no way fluent in french. I did grinds before the oral in the Independent Colleges on Dawson street - did 2 subjects and got 2 oral grinds free (irish and french)
The grind itself is given by a french woman and its not actually that good, but the notes she hands out are amazing, definitely worth the money. I learned some of them off by heart and they were really good phrases that pick up marks - used them again in the written essays of the exam.

Just be careful what you say because they can pick up on anything! Eg, I mentioned a french film i had seen (La Vie en Rose) and she asked me if I thought the actress played a realistic portrayal of Edith Piaf....! So just make sure you think out any possible questions you can be asked on your topics!

ConstantJoe

I find that Bien Dit is a pretty good book for helping you prepare for the oral, though you're going to have to personalise a lot of things. The most important thing is to keep the conversation in the oral on things you have studied, don't bring up anything you haven't, and prepare for any questions the examiner could ask in relation to anything you're going to say.

GoldRush4821

Students from my school were selected as a template for the marking scheme this year and I was picked to do it. I just did it yesterday. I'm higher level but there were ordinary level people there too. The examiners don't know which you are but can obviously tell from the way you've developed your points and your grammar, pronunciation etc...

What happened yesterday was: we went into a room which was set up with two cameras, there were two inspectors and another teacher, we sat down and did a run through of our oral (roughly 15 minutes). They will judge which of us were of an A standard, B standard etc... and the entire oral will be shown to every french teacher in the country so that they are all reading off the same hymn sheet, so to speak, when it comes to the orals in April. What I will say is you should know the important questions that will come up about school, your area, and your family, but at the same time don't learn off long answers because they won't give you time to say it all. My interviewer kept interjecting which is quite off putting lol.. But, you will learn specific topics, racism, violence, drugs etc..., which they will let you say a lot on. So I would advise learning how to steer the conversation towards what you've prepared a good amount of stuff on and that is the way to get most marks. I got a good reaction afterwards but they weren't overly impressed by my document. FYI, if you've got a photo of you and other people as a document, and it's not 100% clear what you want to talk about from looking at the document, you should make it very clear why you chose the document from the get go. Otherwise, examiners can be confused as to what you want to talk about and may ask you questions you haven't prepared for, as happened me yesterday..If you've got any questions in relation to it you can PM me.

Sm4shbox

GoldRush4821 wrote: »

Students from my school were selected as a template for the marking scheme this year and I was picked to do it. I just did it yesterday. I'm higher level but there were ordinary level people there too. The examiners don't know which you are but can obviously tell from the way you've developed your points and your grammar, pronunciation etc...

What happened yesterday was: we went into a room which was set up with two cameras, there were two inspectors and another teacher, we sat down and did a run through of our oral (roughly 15 minutes). They will judge which of us were of an A standard, B standard etc... and the entire oral will be shown to every french teacher in the country so that they are all reading off the same hymn sheet, so to speak, when it comes to the orals in April. What I will say is you should know the important questions that will come up about school, your area, and your family, but at the same time don't learn off long answers because they won't give you time to say it all. My interviewer kept interjecting which is quite off putting lol.. But, you will learn specific topics, racism, violence, drugs etc..., which they will let you say a lot on. So I would advise learning how to steer the conversation towards what you've prepared a good amount of stuff on and that is the way to get most marks. I got a good reaction afterwards but they weren't overly impressed by my document. FYI, if you've got a photo of you and other people as a document, and it's not 100% clear what you want to talk about from looking at the document, you should make it very clear why you chose the document from the get go. Otherwise, examiners can be confused as to what you want to talk about and may ask you questions you haven't prepared for, as happened me yesterday..If you've got any questions in relation to it you can PM me.

Thank you that was very helpful!