Year 9 French

Course objectives
The aim is to stimulate interest in the French language and French everyday life and to build confidence in exchanging simple information in French. The course will enable students to hold a simple conversation in French, with good French pronunciation, to write simple letters to French speakers and to understand simple spoken and written French on familiar topics.

Course content
The French programme provides basic structures and vocabulary to communicate in the following contexts and on the following topics:
• Greetings and introductions • Family • Daily routines • Describing people
The course includes some geographical and cultural background information featuring, especially:
• Region of France • Greeting people / school objects
• Describing people (physically, age) • Animals
• Family • Housing
• Time • One’s home and town / directions • Festivals
The emphasis is on using language to communicate, and extensive use is made of pair-work and group activities to practise speaking skills.

Assessment
Regular evaluations target reading, writing, listening and speaking skills as well as vocabulary acquisition. A term based examination testing competence in the language skills and cultural knowledge is also included in the assessment programme.

Where does the course lead to?
The Year 9 course is complete in itself as an introduction to the language, but it also leads on through Year 10 to NCEA Level 1 French in Year 11.
A school trip to France might be organised every two or three years, if there are sufficient numbers of students and the Covid situation permitting. This trip gives students the opportunity to discover a very different life and culture, as well as put into practice what they have learned over the years.