HL French B- is it worth it?

[SallyShariff]

Hey guys, this is my first post, so please bear with me

I'm in my school's core french program, which gives the students the skills necessary to perform well in the IB SL French course. I'm considerably proficient in the French language, and I'm passing the course easily with high 90s. I know for sure that if I took SL French I'd get an easy 7.

However, because I'm crazy like that, I've managed to convince my coordinator to give me special permission to take the HL French course, which only the French Immersion student are allowed to take. These students are fluent, and have taken a diverse range of subjects (science, history etc) in the french language. Funny thing is, the highest the immersion students who took HL French managed to get was a 6.

So i'm basically having second thoughts. I'm planning on studying in Quebec for uni, and a really want to master a second language, so I got the determination part down. Can any of you who are taking the HL French course give me any advice, suggestions for preparation, opinions on the difficulty of the course? This course would be my 4th HL btw.

Desolee pour la longue message, et merci en avance

[ElvenRanger]

You definitely don't need to be in immersion to succeed in HL French. We took a bunch of past papers last month and I scored 7's on them without having been in immersion.

The best way to prepare is to speak French every minute you're in class, unless you're asking how to say an English phrase in French. Even then, ask in French, for example "Comment est-ce qu'on dit __ en francais?"

Practice the orals, because they take a little getting used to and at first it's very hard to fill up several minutes' worth time just describing a picture. For the orals, my French teacher tells us to begin with the obvious: describe the picture. For example, "au premier fond, il y a..." "il s'agit de..." etc. Then move on to interpretations of the work's meaning. If you can bring in internationalism/health/modern life/etc. the IB will be very pleased

For Paper 1, the best preparation is to read lots of articles (tvmonde, fr24, etc.) and spend lots of time on just a few French books. You'll be asked to write a short commentary on one of the works you study (for example, I'll likely use <<Candide>>).

For Paper 2, I believe this is the one where we have to know the different writing formats. So practice making brochures, writing articles, blogs, letters (informal as well as formal), reviews, etc.

The difficulty level depends on how long you've been studying French. I've been studying since middle school, so by now most of the grammar is easy and it's just working on idiomatic expressions and speaking fluidly.

Yeah 4 HLs! Awesome job and good luck with the IB. Hope this helps~

[insomniac writer]

I take French B HL and I'm quite content with the work and assignments given. As ElvenRanger said, try to speak French as much as you can in the class, watch French TV channels, practice the different text types because these are the main things you need to be good at. My French teacher's advice to my class is to change your phone and computer/laptop's language to French and read as much French as you can since that will aid you with your vocabulary and understanding of the language.

Try expanding your "rich" vocabulary, for example instead of using simple words to describe one thing, expand it to a word a native speaker would use, the IB loves that. Include some things you've learnt and studied in class in your essays and orals.

I hope this somehow helped, and good luck with all your subjects.