Passing a GCSE language exam is an exciting mix of being able to speak the language, and knowing how to get the most out of the marking scheme. One of the things which can raise a grade 6 writing piece to a grade 8 or higher is the use of what is termed “complex grammar constructions”. What are these, and how can we include them?
This blog will give you several examples for French. Many of these constructions can be used in a range of tenses, so I have given a couple of examples in each case:
Être en train de + infinitive – to be in the middle of doing something.
Je suis en train d’écrire un blog – I am in the middle of writing a blog.
J’étais en train d’écrire un blog, quand j’ai vu un chat – I was in the middle of writing a blog when I saw a cat.
Au lieu de + infinitive – instead of doing….
Au lieu d’écrire un blog, il faut faire mes devoirs – Instead of writing a blog, I must do my homework.
Au lieu de faire mes devoirs, j’ai regardé la télé – Instead of doing my homework I watched TV.
Après avoir/être + past participle – after having done something ….WATCH OUT! Just like the present perfect tense, you need to take care of the être verbs…
Après avoir écrit mon blog, je vais prendre un thé – After having written my blog I am going to have a cup of tea.
Après être allée en ville, j’écrirai encore un blog ! – After having gone to town I will write another blog!
Avant de + infinitive – before doing something
Avant de boire mon thé, je vais finir le blog – Before drinking my tea I am going to finish the blog.
Avant de finir le blog, je cherche d’autres exemples – Before finishing the blog, I look for other examples.
Venir de + infinitive – to have just done something
Je venais de trouver un exemple, quand la téléphone a sonné – I had just found an example when the phone rang.
Je viens de finir mon blog. Youpi ! – I have just finished my blog. Hurrah!
Teri is a Surrey-based language trainer specialising in French, German and English as a Foreign Language. She has many years of experience of trying to sound more interesting in French, especially with a view to boosting exam grades (whether for herself or others!)
The GCSE and A Level exams are approaching rapidly. It really is time to knuckle down and get a revision schedule sorted out so that you make sure you spend enough time on each subject and have a chance to look at all aspects of the curriculum.
Here are a few helpful tips to help you stay on the right path:
1. Don’t revise for an exam within half a day of taking it. Exam in the morning? Stop revising for it at lunchtime the day before. Exam in the afternoon? Don’t revise for it that day. Revising at the last minute can sap your confidence as you convince yourself that you don’t know anything and will never get a good grade. If you don’t know your stuff that close to the exam, then spending the remaining hours cramming is unlikely to help!
2. Little and often is key. It can be really tempting to leave the final exams until much nearer the date. However, after 4-5 weeks of exams you will be suffering from revision fatigue and you really won’t want to spend hours each day revising for the last one or two. Besides, we can’t focus well for hours on end so that kind of revision is less effective anyway. Schedule in a few revision sessions for those last exams earlier in the month so that you can keep things ticking over nicely.
3. Take a break every 45 minutes or so. There is a good reason why school lessons last 35-45 minutes – we cannot focus intensively for much longer than that. Work hard and focus well for 45-50 minutes, then take a short break. Not three hours of social media, but 5-10 minutes to walk around the house or garden, get a drink or something to eat, and stretch. Then sit down for another session. Try looking into the “Pomodoro Technique” – there are lots of videos to explain the idea.
4. Vary your revision techniques. Reading and re-reading the same page again and again only works for a very small minority of people. Try drawing mind-maps, thinking of acronyms to help you remember key info, summarising and re-summarising to get to the key points. Get busy with the highlighter pens, add stickers to mark the important bits, see what works best for you.
5. Test yourself regularly. At the beginning of a topic, write yourself a quiz covering 5-10 key pieces of information. When you think you have finished with that topic, try the quiz and see if you can remember the answers without looking in your notes.
6. Check your timing by trying some past papers, under timed conditions. Time management is an important exam technique as it is vital to leave enough time to tackle all of the questions on the paper. Your teacher may give you some past papers, or you can usually find some on the website for the relevant exam board.
7. Successful multi-tasking is a bit of a myth. If you are watching TV, listening to music, checking social media AND revising, then you aren’t concentrating properly on any of them. Book time in your schedule to check email or messaging apps, tell your friends you are going off-line for a while, and allow yourself to really focus.
8. Downtime is important too, so remember to plan it in your revision schedule. Maybe not full days or a whole weekend, but careful slots to allow you to exercise, meet friends, or go to that party.
9. Eat well. Lots of fruit and veg, of course, but also proper good quality protein and carbs. Yes to home-cooked stir fry, stew, bolognaise etc. Proceed with caution when it comes to doughnuts, chocolate and fast food.
10. Prioritise a good sleep habit. Although it can be tempting to revise late into the night, you have to balance the likelihood of retaining something important read at midnight, with the probability of impaired thinking if you have been up that late!
GCSE speaking exams will be taking place in April which leaves just a few weeks of revision and preparation time. So, if you have just 10-12 minutes or so to wow the examiner and get the best possible mark, what preparation can you do?
1. Firstly, be sure to look at the specification for the exam board that you are doing. They are all freely available online, and your teacher may have given you some information already. In general, there will be a picture card section, a role play and a conversation or two – do you know how long each one lasts? How long do you have to prepare?
2. Use your preparation time wisely. You will have a few minutes (12 or so) in a room with an invigilator. During this time you won’t have access to a dictionary or smartphone. The idea is that you look at the picture topic and prompts and plan the role play. You are allowed to make notes, but you must not read out full sentences from your notes, so use keywords only – maybe past participles or verbs to remind you to use them – even a simple list of the things to remember like tenses, adjectives, smile etc.
3. Your teacher has probably given you a list of likely topics/questions. Ensure that you understand ALL of them and that you can recognise them quickly. If you have been encouraged to write sample answers for each question then accept that you may not remember each answer in full – that’s like learning a script. Instead, try to learn keywords for each area and if necessary be willing to stretch the truth in order to demonstrate your language skill, rather than stick rigidly to what you really think/did. E.g. if you spent last weekend canoeing in Somerset but can’t remember how to say so, then tell the assessor that you went to the cinema with your friends to see a comedy!
4. Your assessor will give you a chance to demonstrate past, present and future tenses. Make sure you recognise the clue in the question (ie “What did you do last weekend” = past, “What do you like to do at the weekend” = present, “What will you do next weekend” = future).
5. Learn some panic vocabulary. Swapping from your target language into English to say “I don’t understand” will lose you marks – doing it in French/German/other target language will lose you fewer marks and may gain you some for effective communication! Remember that for some parts of the exam the assessor is only allowed to repeat what they said, not to change the words at all.
6. Know how to formulate questions in your chosen language. For example, does the word order change when you make a question instead of a statement? What are the different question words and what do they mean? Can you recognize them all? You will have to ask a question as part of the role play, so do practise relevant questions for each topic.
7. When it comes to the picture prompt, it is always a good idea to have practised a couple first. Do remember to try to link your description of the photo to the topic where possible. So if the topic is “Work” and you have a picture of a young man serving an elderly couple, try to include the words “waiter”, “restaurant” or “hotel” in your answer as well as describing what they are wearing/doing/eating. Remember that the prompt words are there to give you an idea of what will be asked. The assessor will not use those exact words during the conversation, but will formulate a question around each (from their script).
8. Consider your choice of conversation topic carefully. For example, for Edexcel you can choose one of the two topics and have a minute or so to talk about it before being asked questions on other themes in that topic. You could select one of the themes you are LESS confident with so that you have the maximum amount of time possible to prepare, or you could just hope that it doesn’t come up in the exam and choose one that you know really well instead.
9. Grammar! If you are aiming for the higher grades, then you will have to demonstrate a range of grammar knowledge. See how many of these you can include in your conversation…
– A range of tenses (past, present and future as a minimum, but for a higher grade add, imperfect, conditional and pluperfect if possible) – Complex grammatical structures – e.g. um…zu for German, après avoir +infinitive and avant de +infinitive for French. – A range of people doing the verbs (to show you can use correct endings) – Opinions (3 different ways of showing what you think) – Modal verbs (can, should, must) – Word order: especially for German but also with French (adjective order) – Correct endings depending on gender (and “case” for German) – Time phrases – not just “at 12 o’clock” or “tomorrow” but also rarely, often, never, always etc. – A negative or two
10. Take time to take a deep breath or two as you go into your speaking exam. Remember to smile. And when you run out of things to say, stop and smile confidently rather than trailing off in the middle of a sentence…
French grammar constructions? How dull, I hear you cry! However, that grammar does have its uses, especially if you are trying to make your language more interesting – whether you are looking to impress your friends with some fancy phrases, or you are keen to get some of those extra exam marks for “complex grammar constructions”.
Here are a few useful ways of saying things which should help to widen your vocabulary. Many of these constructions can be used in a range of tenses, so I have given a couple of examples in each case.
1. Être en train de + infinitive – to be in the middle of doing something.
Je suis en train d’écrire un blog – I am in the middle of writing a blog.
J’étais en train d’écrire un blog, quand j’ai vu un chat – I was in the middle of writing a blog when I saw a cat.
2. Au lieu de + infinitive – instead of doing….
Au lieu d’écrire un blog, il faut faire mes devoirs – Instead of writing a blog, I must do my homework.
Au lieu de faire mes devoirs, j’ai regardé la télé – Instead of doing my homework I watched TV.
3. Après avoir/être + past participle – after having done something
WATCH OUT! Just like the present perfect tense, you need to take care of the être verbs…
Après avoir écrit mon blog, je vais prendre un thé – After having written my blog I am going to have a cup of tea.
Après être allée en ville, j’écrirai encore un blog ! – After having gone to town I will write another blog!
4. Avant de + infinitive – before doing something
Avant de boire mon thé, je vais finir le blog – Before drinking my tea I am going to finish the blog.
Avant de finir le blog, je cherche d’autres exemples – Before finishing the blog, I look for other examples.
5. Venir de + infinitive – to have just done something
Je venais de trouver un exemple, quand la téléphone a sonné – I had just found an example when the phone rang.
Je viens de finir mon blog. Youpi ! – I have just finished my blog. Hurrah!
Teri is a Surrey-based language trainer specialising in French, German and English as a Foreign Language. She has many years of experience of trying to sound more interesting in French, especially with a view to boosting exam grades!
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