At the end of Year 8, students will have completed their compulsory studies of French and are now faced with the decision of whether or not to continue. It is difficult to see the benefits of continuing with your language studies at this time however it is a decision you won't regret as it is a learning journey like no other. In Year 9, students build upon the knowledge and skills of year 7 and year 8. They practise and develop the skills of speaking, listening and responding, viewing and responding and writing. They revise and extend their grammatical knowledge, especially of tenses to include the past and future. They continue to build their vocabulary on a range of topics and begin to put this into a range of contexts that are relevant to them. The context of their study is the wider French-speaking world, including Africa and Canada. They learn how to give and exchange personal information on their families and their leisure activities. They study a range of texts, which examine issues such as healthy life styles, travel and tourism and compare and contrast the different education systems. Students continue to deepen their intercultural knowledge and understanding and develop their cognitive ability through their study of how the language functions.