How hard is French SL?

[Sangam Shrestha]

Hey guys,

I was wondering how hard French SL is. Can you tell me what the course covers? What do I need to study and what should I review?

Thanks!

[spidey]

My sister graduated from IB this year. Apparently French SL is not hard for grade 9&10. She also said that in order to excel in French, you have to be confident in speaking orally above all else. So, if you find oral hard, practice speaking in French and what not.

[Summer Glau]

She also said that in order to excel in French, you have to be confident in speaking orally above all else.

Well this is true for learning French in general, in IB French it's not as important, seeing as only 30% of your grade comes from oral communication. The other 70% is your reading and writing.

For grade 9 and 10, most of French is just grammar. It seems pretty mundane sometimes (well actually, it is) but the grammar is really important so make sure you can master the basic tenses like present, passe compose, imparfait, futur, etc. by the time you leave grade 10. This will make your life a lot easier in grade 11 where you will have to write more compositions as practice for the IB exam and learn more advanced grammar.

If you can't use the basic tenses correctly (and conjugate correctly), you'll probably have no idea what you're doing when it comes to more advanced grammar. So try to master the basics first as this will give you a good foundation for grade 11 and 12.

Since you're in pre-IB, that's all you need to worry about for now. Don't worry about stuff like the details of the French SL course/exams, just focus on improving your French in general and building a strong foundation

[ChocolateDrop]

It's not that hard. The writing part of it is knowing different writing styles and techniques i.e Leaflet /Formal letter/ Journal/ Newspaper article etc and using these produce a piece of literature which is ideally french. By french I mean this leaflet, for example, is something you would could be found in France and is believable. For preparation my teacher suggests reading an article and producing the main elements in the form of one of these pieces of literature three times a week. As well as reading french books (with english/ native language translations on the opposite page), watching french media and listening to french songs.

[yomanyomo]

I'm assuming you're talking about French B. French B/ab intio/A are very different. I'm sure you already know that, so i'm not going to explain.

But if you're talking about how hard French B SL is, then I should say... not at all.

I started learning French from scratch 2 and a half years ago and I didn't find it difficult. I did French B SL in 10th grade and I got a 6 in the exam without any study. And i got a 7 in ab initio French.

I heard that they made French B (or any other language B) at HL more difficult than usually...apparently many students who are fluent in the language take it for an easy 7 so the IB decided to put in 2 works of literature in HL.

I find it unfair because I want to take French B HL next year and I'm not anywhere near fluent (I have to take it because I want to study languages in University).

Although, I have also been learning English for 2 and half years, so I think I'm good at picking up languages.

But honestly, French B isn't going to be hard at SL if you have been learning french for 2 years or more Good luck!