Year 7

Phonics: Our Year 7 curriculum focuses initially on phonics, teaching students the skills to pronounce new and familiar words correctly. We start with single sounds and then words, building up to recognising silent final consonants and liaison between words. Each sound is revisited several times throughout the year to build confidence and familiarity.

Grammar: Students learn to use nouns with correct genders and plural forms; adjectives with correct endings and position; negatives; regular and irregular verbs in the present tense; verbs followed by an infinitive and question forms. Each of these items is taught and then revisited in a later context or topic.

Vocabulary and topics: Students learn to describe themselves and others, talk about their school subjects, hobbies and where they live. They are able to give opinions and create longer sentences using a range of conjunctions.

Students read a variety of texts and listen to native speakers to develop their comprehension skills and their vocabulary. Homework regularly includes practice retrieval from the knowledge organisers.

Year 8

Phonics: Students in Year 8 continue to develop their knowledge of phonics and are taught to read aloud, using correct linking or liaison between words.

Grammar: We build on the grammar and vocabulary taught in Year 7, revisiting many high frequency items such as the present tense, and we teach students to use the perfect tense and the near future tense. Students are taught to be attentive when writing and translating, noting small differences in spelling and pronunciation which convey different meaning. They revisit adjectival agreement and learn how to use comparative adjectives. Question forms and all three tenses are further embedded.

Vocabulary and topics: We build on the topics covered in Year 7, teaching students to write and talk about films, books and online media. This is followed by a module about a visit to Paris in which students enjoy finding out about the French capital city and its famous sights. They learn to write and talk about relationships with family and friends and home life (home, rooms, food and celebrations.)

Why study this course?

The GCSE French course will develop your communication skills in both French and English, helping you to become an independent learner and learn about other cultures.  Linguists are highly valued in almost every career as every company requires articulate employees with good communication skills. In addition, most companies work with organisations abroad and/or speakers of other languages in this country. Languages are particularly useful in Business, Management, Law, Marketing, Administration, Medical careers, and Journalism. Britain has a national shortage of employees at all levels with language skills. The GCSE course will also prepare you for the A Level French course.

Links to specification

Our exam board at GCSE is AQA. Use this link https://www.aqa.org.uk/subjects/languages/gcse/french-8658 to find the specification and past papers for exam practice.

Course content outline

Year 9 Unit 1

Topics covered: Me, my family and friends, Relationships with family and friends, Free-time activities, Sport

Language and Grammar Points revisited and developed: Pronunciation and alphabet, review of phonics taught in KS3, Present tense of the verbs être, avoir, jouer and faire – in all 6 forms, Emphatic pronouns, Gender and articles: definite, indefinite and partitive, Possessive adjectives, Adjectives: agreement and position, Near / immediate future: aller + infinitive

Year 9 Unit 2

Topics covered: Home, town, neighbourhood and region, The environment, My house, Helping at home

Language and Grammar Points revisited and developed: Pronunciation, Prepositions eg devant, à côté de, C’est / il y a / il n’y a pas de, Present tense of regular verbs, Subject pronouns, Present tense of the verb devoir, Near / Immediate future: aller + infinitive

Year 9 Unit 3

Topics covered: My studies, Life at school / college

Language and Grammar Points revisited and developed: Pronunciation including liaison, Telling the time, Negatives, Agreement of adjectives, Reflexive verbs in the present tense, Comparative (plus/moins + adj, plus/moins de + noun), Review of present tense, Introduction of some elements of the conditional tense: j’aimerais, il y aurait, ce serait, il faudrait

Year 9-10 Unit 4

Topics covered: Travel and Tourism, Global Issues (the Environment)

Language and Grammar Points revisited and developed: Continued review and practice of pronunciation, The perfect tense, The weather, à, en, au, aux with towns and countries, Using the present tense to talk about preferred holidays, Giving opinions in the past tense, including c’était and il y avait, Review of near future (aller + inf) to describe future holiday plans, Role-play phrases about booking accommodation, Il faut + infinitive, en + present participle (recognition)

Year 10 Unit 5

Topics covered: Sport; Food and eating out, Healthy / Unhealthy living

Language and Grammar Points revisited and developed: The perfect tense (review), The imperfect tense, Expressions with avoir, Reflexive verbs, Role-play phrases about illness, Parts of the body, Il faut and on devrait, The partitive with food items, Near / immediate future: aller + infinitive

Year 10 Unit 6

Topics covered: Home, Town, Neighbourhood and Region, The Environment; Travel and Tourism

Language and Grammar Points revisited and developed: Asking questions, Using tu / vous, Understanding questions, The imperative, The comparative and superlative, Using the verbs vouloir, pouvoir and devoir + infinitive

Year 10 Unit 7

Topics covered: Education post-16, Jobs, Career Choices, Ambitions

Language and Grammar Points revisited and developed: Near / immediate future: aller + infinitive, The future tense, The conditional tense, The perfect tense, The imperfect tense

Year 10-11 Unit 8

Topics covered: Sport; Free time activities, Customs and Festivals

Language and Grammar Points revisited and developed: Asking questions to arrange outings, Role-play phrases for going out and for cafés and restaurants, The perfect and imperfect tenses, Vouloir, pouvoir and devoir, Using negatives, Using au/à la/à l’/aux with places

Year 11 Unit 9

Topics covered: Town, Shopping, Free-time activities

Language and Grammar Points revisited and developed: The partitive with food items, Quantities with de, The pronoun ‘en’, Ce/cet/cette/ces, Direct and indirect object pronouns (me, te, le etc), Qui/que, Afin de / pour + infinitive = in order to

Year 11 Unit 10

Topics covered: Music, Cinema, TV, Social Media and Mobile Technology

Language and Grammar Points revisited and developed: Adverbs, The comparative and superlative, For comprehension and extension: The passive, The pluperfect, The subjunctive

Year 11 Unit 11

Topics covered: Social issues, Charity/voluntary work, Healthy/unhealthy living, Global issues, The environment, Poverty/homelessness

Language and Grammar Points revisited and developed: Review of tenses: F+H: Present, perfect, near future, H: Imperfect, Future, Conditional; Avant de + infinitive, Après avoir/être +pp, Asking questions