French

"Do you know what a foreign accent is? It's a sign of bravery."

Amy Chua

"A different language is a different vision of life."

Federico Fellini

Course Summary

The Modern Foreign Languages department aims to inspire a love of language learning and an awareness and acceptance of different cultures. Students will develop critical thinking, creativity, independence and skills of analysis.

Over the two year course, students focus on 4 main themes:

Changes in French society

Political and artistic culture in francophone countries

Immigration and multicultural French society

Occupation and Resistance

Students study one film (La Haine) and one novel (Un Sac de Billes, Joseph Joffo).

Assessment

Paper 1: Listening, reading and translation (French to English). 40% of the total marks available.

Paper 2: Written response to works and translation (English to French). This paper requires two essays, each about 275-350 words (one about the film studied and one about the book). 30% of the total marks available.

Paper 3: Speaking. This consists of two tasks; task 1 is a discussion on a sub-theme studied and task 2 is a presentation of independent research, follow by a discussion. 30% of the total marks available.