IB SL French Oral! help please!

[sarawr999]

Hey guys,

so I have my IB french oral coming up with my teacher and I'm doing it on the painting "La Trahison des Images" by Rene Magritte and the painting's theme is basically that a word and an object have no necessary connection other than that we collectively assigned that word and that object to go together.

I was wondering if anyone, whether you speak french or not, could just come up with questions that you would ask me about the panting (which is the the second part of the oral). I want to be as prepared as possible and I am not entireley sure what type of questions to expect. So if any of you have any experience with doing orals on paintings, or if you just have questions, please ask away!

Thanks SO much for your help

[kim luffy]

Hey First of all best of luck in your oral And secondly, possible questions that could be asked are like why she did she draw that picture? and why does she think that words and objects have no connection with each other. Also, your own personal opinion about the work of art may be asked if you haven't implemented it yet in your essay. A question like what you think about the piece of art and whether you think it means what that lady said or whether it could mean something else. Personal opinions are more sought after though. I hope i helped bon chance

Edited November 7, 2011 by kim luffy

[trumperies]

As Magritte was an absurdest painter, I would want you to relate his works to the time period.

The absurdest movement was a huge response to the terrors of WWII such as the dropping of the atomic bomb and the Holocaust.

[Sandwich]

Wow you weren't doing yourself many favours picking this topic! Most people pick a topic for their oral that they know loads of vocab for - for exactly the reason that it means they're better equipped to combat the mystery questions they're going to be asked Means you do boring topics but it's totally worth the marks boost.

Aaanyway. First thing's first, if there are any verbs relating to painting, art etc. that you don't know, mug up on them. To paint, to draw, watercolours, oil, canvas, paintbrush, absurdism... that kind of vocab. Usually your teacher is going to try to be nice to you, but if they ask you a question about the painting and use a word which SEEMS like simple vocab relating to the theme but is actually a word you've never been exposed to (purely because nobody's ever really taught painting vocab!), you'll be very sad indeed.

Questions will depend slightly on how you pitched your presentation. I'd try and know a little bit about Magritte and a few of the other things he painted, other artists around at the time, perhaps where you can go and see the painting. Generally the teacher wants you to speak as much as possible and for them to speak as little as possible, so my advice would be that you always try to take the conversation off on your own tangent. You can direct the teacher's questions just by what you say. Turn the conversation in a direction you know something about I remember for my oral I prepared a load of mini-speeches which were related to my presentation topic and then just did everything humanly possible to find an excuse to cram them in. Worked a treat 'cause I was confident that what I was saying wasn't total BS - and the less questions your teacher asks, the more you're in the realms of your own knowledge of the language!

[sarawr999]

merci beaucoup! i really appreciate the advice

[DC_JackBlind]

I would also suggest being prepared for simple questions, which are often posed in our practice orals because our teacher stresses that not only should the presenter be engaged but as a listener you should equally show an interest by asking at least one question at the end. These could range from anything to "why did you chose this painting/artist in particular" to "does this painting/artist personally appeal to you BECAUSE of this theme i.e. collectively assigning words to describe objects or ideas"

In essence: make sure you can, with appropriate vocabulary, relate to WHY you chose this and what fascinates you about it. I assume, seeing as you didn't choose and easy subject, you will be passionate about this topic and therefore as long as you've done your research in french and you've therefore picked up the topic specific jargon, you should be fine. Preparing phrases you can fall back on as the above poster suggested is also a strategy I would recommend.

One thing I've realised is that the more confident you feel, the easier ideas into sentences in a foreign language becomes. So if you're prepared be confident and enthusiastic in your presentation. Good Luck!