French

Course details

French: Edexcel GCSE

In this course, you will master four key skills—Listening, Speaking, Reading, and Writing—which are all worth exactly 25% of your final grade. You will take four exams at the end of the course, and you'll sit all of them at either the Foundation or Higher level depending on what suits you best. Instead of just memorising lists, you will build your confidence using French in real ways through activities like role-plays, translations, and creative writing.

Exam structure

Useful revision resources

BBC Bitesize: https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/examspecs/zhkvkhv 

Verb Tables: https://conjugator.reverso.net/conjugation-french.html 

Quizlet: https://quizlet.com/class/28904855/materials 

Seneca: senecalearning.com 

Revision Tips

Master the Official Vocabulary List 

Edexcel provides a specific list of words you need to know. Don’t try to learn the whole dictionary; focus on the High Frequency words first (the words used in almost every sentence), then tackle the topic-specific lists (like ‘Identity’ or ‘Future Aspirations’).

Practice Dictation (For Paper 2) 

Since there is a specific Dictation section in the Listening exam, practice listening to short French sentences and writing them down exactly. This helps link the sound of the word to its spelling, which is crucial for picking up those easy marks.

Perfect Your "Read Aloud" Skills (For Paper 1) 

The Speaking exam starts with a Read Aloud task. Practice reading short French texts out loud at home to build confidence in your pronunciation and intonation. This warms you up for the harder tasks and helps with the new phonics focus.

Check Your Tenses (For Paper 4) 

For the Writing exam (especially the open-response questions), you get higher marks for using different time frames. Make sure you can confidently write a sentence in the Past, Present, and Future tenses for every topic you revise.

Practice Translation Both Ways 

You will be asked to translate from French to English (Reading paper) and English to French (Writing paper). Practice this by taking a short paragraph, translating it into English, and then trying to translate it back into French without looking at the original to see where you make mistakes.