Study at PSC

This one-year course offers you the opportunity to move you on from GCSE, covering all four skills of speaking, listening, reading and writing. You will gain a greater knowledge of the grammatical structures and develop accuracy in the language. The practical, applied approach to the study of French at this level means that it is useful to students of the arts and sciences alike. 

This AS Level course will enable you to enhance your spoken and written language in French beyond GCSE, whilst developing a range of transferrable skills, valued in many university courses and careers. 

The AS syllabus builds on GCSE content and skills, covering:

• Social issues and trends and artistic culture, including a film. 
• Aspects of French-speaking society: current trends: The Changing Family, “Cybersociety” and The Role of Volunteering.
• Artistic culture in the French speaking world: France and its Cultural Heritage, Cinema: The 7th Art and Contemporary Francophone Music. 

The course will move you on from GCSE covering the skills of reading, writing, speaking and listening. You will be taught in a French A Level class, covering the same content and skills taught in the full A Level qualification. 

Lessons are taught mainly in French and students will be working individually, in pairs or in small groups on a variety of activities including reading, note-taking, making use of online resources to acquire a wider range of vocabulary. Grammar revision and extension will also be an integral part of daily activities in class. You will engage in many oral activities in class, and also have a weekly session with a French language assistant to further enhance your production of the spoken language. 

Learning through independent active study is crucial to your progress, and carefully monitored programmes will support you in this. 

All four skills: speaking, listening, reading and writing will be assessed at the end of the course, with cultural content forming a key part of the assessment. 

• Unit 1 - Listening/reading comprehension and translation into English (45 %)
• Unit 2 – Writing: including a translation into French and a short essay in response to a question on the film studied (25%)  
• Unit 3 – Speaking: discussion of two of the themes studied during the year (30%)

French can be studied in combination with any other course in higher education. Many courses, including those in the sciences, will offer students with good language skills the chance to take part of their degree course abroad. Graduates in modern languages are in short supply, and employers are increasingly keen to recruit people with language skills.

There are many good reasons to study French, and these include:

• French is not only spoken in France, it is also the official language in 28 other countries, and is spoken in many other countries
• Knowledge of a foreign language is highly valued by Universities and employers

You will have access to an online textbook and resources from our Google site and the Learning Resource Centre. The French department can also loan some materials, but you may need to purchase work booklets.

Film study day in the BFI (£30 approx.): conducted mainly in French, the day is an ideal introduction to the style and themes of the French New Wave and its impact on contemporary French cinema, one of the two themes studied at AS. 

The College has a Student Support Fund for those students who have difficulty meeting these costs.