What should I do to do well in French?

[JongJong]

Hi everyone. I'm planning on getting head start in French over these holidays since I've slacked off a little this year due to my 3/4 and whatnot. I was hoping someone could give me a comprehensive list on everything I need to revise (please be specific - which grammar points/vocab topics etc.) in order to the best I can next year. If anyone also has any useful quizlets (maybe a gigantic 3/4 French vocab list?) they could link me or even just ideas for quizlet lists I should make for myself that would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

[sudodds]

Hi everyone. I'm planning on getting head start in French over these holidays since I've slacked off a little this year due to my 3/4 and whatnot. I was hoping someone could give me a comprehensive list on everything I need to revise (please be specific - which grammar points/vocab topics etc.) in order to the best I can next year. If anyone also has any useful quizlets (maybe a gigantic 3/4 French vocab list?) they could link me or even just ideas for quizlet lists I should make for myself that would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Okay so I didn't do the VCE so I'm maybe not the best person to give advice cos i don't know the syllabus hahaha, but I've been learning and practicing my french on duolingo.com and its helped heaps It's free and you can practice writing, listening, reading and speaking with it. When I did French in year 10 I started using it and my marks bumped up heaps! Defs helps with grammar as well.

[exit]

VCE French is basically based upon grammar, so you need to make sure they're down pat

Get your hands on Schaums Grammar and do all the exercises

If you're confident with a section, skip it

Personally, I learnt all the grammar (at least what we needed for VCE) in Year 11 so I didn't bother doing the exercises

If it adds to my credibility, I got 47 raw this year. I'm not french or a francophone and never been on french exchange to france or another french speaking country

You'll be told this a lot- use subjonctif but tbh overuse is bad and cringe worthy. Not to say don't use it, but you need a variety of grammar

Grammar is literally the most important thing ever, perhaps > vocab (which imo is still very important)

e.g. for the exam, your answers can all be wrong but if you use good grammar, you'll still get marks

47 is amazing and you are making it seem like an easy thing. It is not!!! You must have amazing vocabulary that casual non-french plebs never use and be meticulous enough to get all your grammar right. I did German and my school is ranked 50 and most of the students are accelerated but all our scores are pretty bad lol (multiple 28s) with a native getting 38. We had a poor quality audio playing but still...you are genius.

[JongJong]

VCE French is basically based upon grammar, so you need to make sure they're down pat

Get your hands on Schaums Grammar and do all the exercises

If you're confident with a section, skip it

Personally, I learnt all the grammar (at least what we needed for VCE) in Year 11 so I didn't bother doing the exercises

If it adds to my credibility, I got 47 raw this year. I'm not french or a francophone and never been on french exchange to france or another french speaking country

You'll be told this a lot- use subjonctif but tbh overuse is bad and cringe worthy. Not to say don't use it, but you need a variety of grammar

Grammar is literally the most important thing ever, perhaps > vocab (which imo is still very important)

e.g. for the exam, your answers can all be wrong but if you use good grammar, you'll still get marks

Wow 47 raw that's amazing! I bought Schaums Grammar last year but haven't touched it yet, and if I'm gonna be completely honest though I've learnt all the grammar points this year such as the subjonctif, I've done little to no study for French this year (I became a bit complacent with the subject). But I'm hoping to change that because I've done really well in French in the past when I did actually study! So would you recommend I just try and complete all the major grammar points in Schaums by the end of the holidays? And what do you think of the Schaums Vocab book (I have it but not sure how useful it is). And lastly do you have a list of topics I could start preparing a vocab list for?
Thanks soooo much

[K888]

I'll just give some general tips. I didn't do too much during the holidays but the key thing is to maintain your level in French as best as possible. If there are some summer classes near you, even if its just a few days, maybe consider that

For what its worth, I didn't use Schaum at all (did 2 pages), I found it boring and honestly found duolingo as useful to practice getting the little things right (which is an important thing in French)...I probably credit my year 10 teacher with that though, he drummed all the important grammar points into us. So it's not the end of the world if you don't use the whole book.
I'd say one of the most important things is to get good with listening techniques and practice them throughout the year (as your listening SAC is one of the first ones then there's nothing after that). Read the questions carefully and pick out the key words during reading time, listen for them, etc. etc.
Writing is also very important. Try to do one practice piece a week, 200-300 words. It'll help you write quickly and expand your vocab. Getting a rough plan of what you want to write first is helpful, and also pay attention to the conventions of each text type - eg: title, author name, register, address, date, etc.
Speaking throughout the year will help so much. During year 11, I developed the ability to hold a basic, short conversation, but through speaking most of the time in french in year 12, I got to the stage where I was comfortable enough and able to hold a conversation. Afaik, a lot of teachers make students speak only in french during class - at first it seems a bit unreasonable and tricky, but you'll be thankful for it eventually!