World Languages Faculty

AS Level French Summer Holiday Booklet

So, you’ve done your GCSEs and you’ve opted to study AS Level French?

Congratulations! Studying languages post-16 will be of enormous benefit to you in the future, even if you don’t realise it yet. Three quarters of adults in the UK cannot speak a foreign language, and language courses are the most subscribed adult learning programmes in the country. Therefore, by studying French in the Sixth Form, statistically, you will be a part of only 25% of the adult population who can speak a foreign language AND you’ll save money!

This booklet is designed to give you an insight into French at AS Level, but also to give you some achievable, yet stretching, activities to keep you going over the summer. There is one page per week.

Course Overview:

At A Level, there are four major topics and each one is divided into three sub-topics. They are as follows:

Les changements dans la société française o Les changements dans les structures familiales o L’éducation o Le monde du travail

La culture politique et artistique dans les pays francophones

o La musique o Les medias o Les festivals et les traditions

L’immigration et la société multiculturelle française

o L’impact positif de l’immigration sur la société française o Répondre aux défis de l’immigration et l’intégration en France o L’extrême droite

L’Occupation et la Résistance

o La France occupée o Le régime de Vichy o La Résistance

The activities in this booklet have all been designed for the A Level French course, so you know they are relevant to what you will be studying. There is a range of difficulty levels, types of activity and topics covered, so there should be something to interest you! At the end are some websites and tips for keeping your Listening and Reading skills tip-top. Any questions/problems/real difficulties, feel free to email me (j.webb@hayesfield.com), although I can’t guarantee I’ll reply straight away as it is the Summer Holidays after all!

Compétences: revision of idioms to avoid word-for-word translation.

There are some expressions that just cannot be translated literally from one language to another.

These can be very short, for example:

– sous la pluie = in the rain (literally under the rain)

or longer idioms, for example:

– J’ai fait la grasse matinée = I had a lie-in (literally, I made the fat morning).

Either way, you need to know as many as you can. Not only will they help you make better sense of what you hear or read, they will also ensure that your French is accurate when you speak or write. Try to keep a note of any expressions that fall into this category and read over them regularly.

Of course, you know the word à and its contractions au / aux – they mean ‘at’ or ‘to’. But be on your guard: that is not always quite true. Consider the phrases in question 1 below.

Similarly, the preposition de (and its contractions d’, du and des) is often used in idioms and not always translated literally. Consider the phrases in question 2 below.

1 Listed below are some common French phrases. Find their English meanings.

1 à bientôt! a. on the horizon 2 au soleil b. on TV

3 à tes souhaits! c. it’s mine 4 au feu! d. bless you! 5 à l’horizon e. basically

6 mal aux dents f. see you soon 7 à la télé g. toothache 8 au fond h. gradually

9 peu à peu i. fire! 10 c’est à moi j. in the sun

2 Translate the following sentences into English, taking care to think of the meaning and avoid word-for-word translation. Read your sentences aloud. Are you happy that they sound natural?

1. Il est arrivé accompagné de tous ses copains.

…………………………………………………………………………………………...........................................................................……...

2. Un adolescent de seize ans est mort dans un accident de ski. …………………………………………………………………………………........................................................................………...……...

3. Tu as changé d’avis, alors.

………………………………………………………………………………........................................................................…………...……...

Opinions about TV: How much TV do French people watch?

Opinions about TV: What are the attitudes towards different channels?

Internet and TV: answer these questions in English.

Internet and Technology: find the equivalent words in this article, then complete the phrases in English.

Compétences: forming questions in French.

To form questions, you need the following question words:

quand = when qui = who comment = how

combien = how many / how much où = where pourquoi = why

quel(s) / quelle(s) = what (followed by a noun) que = what (followed by a verb)

These can be used in different ways:

1 Use a question word followed by a sentence: Pourquoi tu aimes cette musique?

2 Some of the question words can be used at the end of a sentence:

Tu aimes cette musique pourquoi?

3 Invert subject and verb (slightly more correct/formal): Pourquoi aimes-tu cette musique?

4 Add est-ce que (again, slightly more formal): Pourquoi est-ce que tu aimes cette musique?

See page 121 of the Student’s Book for more types of questions.

1 Fill in the blanks with the correct words from the box.

quand qui comment quel quelle quelles que combien où pourquoi

1 .............................. arrivez-vous demain soir?

2 À .............................. heure allez-vous partir?

3 Il a voyagé avec ..............................?

4 .............................. a-t-il voyagé?

5 .............................. est-ce qu’elle a décidé de participer à ce concours?

6 De .............................. quai part le train?

7 .............................. fais-tu samedi soir?

8 Elle habite ..............................?

9 Il a .............................. de CD?

10 .............................. chansons préfères-tu?

2 Write a question to match each answer.

1 Je voudrais aller à l’université.

………………………………………………………………………………........................................................................…………...……...

2 Le concert était fantastique.

………………………………………………………………………………........................................................................…………...……...

3 Parce que j’adore me bronzer.

………………………………………………………………………………........................................................................…………...……...

4 À sept heures et demie.

………………………………………………………………………………........................................................................…………...……...

Tourism and Holidays: read the articles and answer the questions in English.

Extreme Sports: Gap-fill.

Sports and Leisure: What is your personality like? Take the quiz to find out!

Compétences: Words that indicate a change in meaning.

Reading a text through quickly to get the gist of it can be useful, but sometimes you may need to look more closely, especially at ‘little’ words. There are times when a single word or phrase can change the meaning of a sentence. Consider the following sentences:

Manon adore tous les sports, surtout* le foot.

Nico adore tous les sports, sauf* le foot.

Does Manon like football? Does Nico?

Glancing quickly, you might think that both sentences have the same meaning. Being alert to key words and phrases of this sort will help you to improve your reading comprehension.

[* surtout = especially; sauf = except]

1 Listed below are some common French words and phrases. Match them up with their English meanings.

1 si a. especially 2 sauf b. if 3 ne… que… c. only 4 surtout d. except 5 ça m’étonnerait beaucoup que e. it’s quite out of the question that 6 il n’y a aucune chance que f. I would be very surprised that 7 il est absolument hors de question que g. there is no chance that

2 Read the sentences then answer yes or no to the questions in English. Which word or phrase helped you to decide?

1 Karima partira en Algérie si ses parents sont d’accord. Is Karima definitely going to Algeria?

………………………………………………………………………………………………… 2 Florian ne fait que du ski. Does Florian ski?

………………………………………………………………………………………………… 3 Ça m’étonnerait beaucoup que Léa préfère rester en France pendant les vacances. Does the speaker think Léa would rather stay in France during the holidays?

………………………………………………………………………………………………… 4 J’aime bien le plein air, mais il est absolument hors de question qu’on fasse du camping. Is the speaker going camping?

…………………………………………………………………………………………………

Useful websites:

www.wordreference.com : a life-changing website! SO much better than Google translate! Look up individual words, browse the forums for translations of phrases that are tricky and conjugate any verb into any tense (which is the most exciting thing ever)!

http://fr.euronews.com/ : here you’ll find a variety of news videos, to help you work on your listening skills. Select a clip, play it at least three times and write a brief (absolute maximum 50 words) summary in French. Once you get good at doing this with video clips, try a radio news report (much harder).

http://www.radiofrance.fr/ : listen live to seven French radio stations, download podcasts or watch videos online.

http://people.excite.fr/ : a celebrity gossip site in French, for all you wannabe Kardashians!

http://www.liberation.fr/ http://www.lemonde.fr/ http://www.leparisien.fr/ : major national newspaper websites, to help you practice your reading skills and keep up-to-date with world events.

http://www.elle.fr/ http://www.letudiant.fr/ http://www.lequipe.fr/ : fashion, student and sports specific websites (in that order).

To work on your reading skills, select an article which interests you, read it carefully and select at least 10 new pieces of vocabulary to look up. The choice of topic area is limitless. The temptation may be to pick an article on fashion, but you should avoid doing this every week as they are not so easy to understand. It is a good idea to vary the topic area and to choose articles related to the syllabus topics so that you encounter a variety of vocabulary.

Bonnes vacances!