Is this normal in a Pre-IB French class?

[Royster Zhang]

My IB journey started yesterday, and already I am noticing something fishy: My French class is EXTREMELY easy. My school's IB program was known as the hardest among the IB schools in the area, and someone I knew who currently attends to grade 10 Pre-IB here told me that last year her French marks were in the 70s, and I know for a fact she was at least my current level last year. However so far my French teacher only started to cover present tense, and when I asked her at what time of the year would we be learning tenses like Subjonctif, Passe Simple and Passe Anterieur she said those tenses are not even in the grade 9 IB curriculum. Is that true?

PS My school's IB program does not cover Geography, but I saw other IB schools have Pre-IB geography. What would that suggest?

[Guest B.E.P.]

Yes, I think that is normal. I know that all my friends who took French B (which is what I assume you will enter) took the subjonctif, passé simple, and passé anterieur in grade 11 of IB.

[Royster Zhang]

Yes, I think that is normal. I know that all my friends who took French B (which is what I assume you will enter) took the subjonctif, passé simple, and passé anterieur in grade 11 of IB.

WHAT? R U SERIOUS? i thought ib french would be the equivalent in difficulty to french extended high school's french program!

Yes, I think that is normal. I know that all my friends who took French B (which is what I assume you will enter) took the subjonctif, passé simple, and passé anterieur in grade 11 of IB.

And I live in Toronto

[Guest B.E.P.]

Yes, I think that is normal. I know that all my friends who took French B (which is what I assume you will enter) took the subjonctif, passé simple, and passé anterieur in grade 11 of IB.

WHAT? R U SERIOUS? i thought ib french would be the equivalent in difficulty to french extended high school's french program!

Yes, I think that is normal. I know that all my friends who took French B (which is what I assume you will enter) took the subjonctif, passé simple, and passé anterieur in grade 11 of IB.

And I live in Toronto

Well, that depends on which level of French you are going to go into. If you are going to go into French A (for native speakers) then you're going too slow. If it's French B (the intermediate level), then that's okay.

I don't live in a Francophone country, but my friends who took the course all got 7s and 6s (to be exact, there were three 7s and two 6s). Although they were in French B SL, so I would assume that maybe for French B HL these tenses would be covered in grade 10.

But trust me, you really don't need to worry!

[by.andrew]

Yeah, my school's Pre-IB entrance exam was really hard, but the French classes themselves are pretty much spare periods. Not much content to cover. I wouldn't really worry; the overwhelming majority of the students at my school get 6s and 7s.

[bear_grylls_of_ib]

I take IB spanish sl but i noticed the similarity and what i would say to this in my opinion is the IB program is setup to give you strong long lasting knowledge in every subject not just a learn this quick for the test and forget it style of language learning like normal school usually is. so when the kids not doing IB are "ahead" of you it's not really true. You will have much more in depth vocabulary and ability to speak it and you will maintain it much better compared to others. Slow and steady wins the race.

[Royster Zhang]

Yes, I think that is normal. I know that all my friends who took French B (which is what I assume you will enter) took the subjonctif, passé simple, and passé anterieur in grade 11 of IB.

WHAT? R U SERIOUS? i thought ib french would be the equivalent in difficulty to french extended high school's french program!

Yes, I think that is normal. I know that all my friends who took French B (which is what I assume you will enter) took the subjonctif, passé simple, and passé anterieur in grade 11 of IB.

And I live in Toronto

Well, that depends on which level of French you are going to go into. If you are going to go into French A (for native speakers) then you're going too slow. If it's French B (the intermediate level), then that's okay.

I don't live in a Francophone country, but my friends who took the course all got 7s and 6s (to be exact, there were three 7s and two 6s). Although they were in French B SL, so I would assume that maybe for French B HL these tenses would be covered in grade 10.

But trust me, you really don't need to worry!

Thanks, but now I just find French class a huge waste of time. Is it possible to take some sort of exam and skip to Grade 10 IB french instead?

[bear_grylls_of_ib]

Yes, I think that is normal. I know that all my friends who took French B (which is what I assume you will enter) took the subjonctif, passé simple, and passé anterieur in grade 11 of IB.

WHAT? R U SERIOUS? i thought ib french would be the equivalent in difficulty to french extended high school's french program!

Yes, I think that is normal. I know that all my friends who took French B (which is what I assume you will enter) took the subjonctif, passé simple, and passé anterieur in grade 11 of IB.

And I live in Toronto

Well, that depends on which level of French you are going to go into. If you are going to go into French A (for native speakers) then you're going too slow. If it's French B (the intermediate level), then that's okay.

I don't live in a Francophone country, but my friends who took the course all got 7s and 6s (to be exact, there were three 7s and two 6s). Although they were in French B SL, so I would assume that maybe for French B HL these tenses would be covered in grade 10.

But trust me, you really don't need to worry!

Thanks, but now I just find French class a huge waste of time. Is it possible to take some sort of exam and skip to Grade 10 IB french instead?

no this probably isn't possible. in ap classes for instance at least in america you can not even take the class and just take the test and get credits for it if you pass but in Ib class hours matter to get your diploma. However, it could be possible that if your in IB sl french you could switch to HL and that would give you more of a challenege but idk about Canada i hope this advice helps.

[IBidiot]

I didn't take French but I did take Spanish and it was extremely easy in Pre-IB. Take what your friend says with a grain of salt because she's not you. I had people all of the time telling me about their bad grade in Spanish, while I had 100+ . As far as your school not having geography, that doesn't mean anything besides the fact that either your school isn't big enough or not enough kids wanted to take it. My school doesn't have a lot of subjects but that doesn't mean that the curriculum isn't any good. It's means that there is a close knit group of teachers that get their subjects down pat because they have a wide range of students that are likely to take their class.

Believe me, it drove me nuts because of the simplicity of the subject in 9th and 10th, but you'll eventually get to where you want to be, and if you wanted, you could always just go your own way and start learning ahead!