resolved :)

[Cheddar Cheese]

resolved

[Hokiksyo-min]

Hi!
Not doing French, but from a general language perspective:
- dont listen to the whole sentence - just look out for key words that you know will be in there and you can fill everything else in with context
-read the questions beforehand, so you know what you're looking for
The only thing you can do before is practice (which you seem to have down pat!  )  after i starting listening to German music, listening tests became a lot easier to follow...

Good luck!

[Cheddar Cheese]

Ok thanks!

Also, would you recommend taking notes during the first playing? Because whenever I do that, I can't focus on writing the words and listening at the same time, so I end up missing so much info even if I write simple phrases!! But if I just listen to the context, there is so much pressure on the second listening to get all the answers.

Also, do you note take in english or french/the other language if you are meant to write in french? What about if you are meant to write in english?

[banditk]

Also, do you note take in english or french/the other language if you are meant to write in french? What about if you are meant to write in english?

Personally, I note take everything in French. Basically during listening I try to scribble down whatever basic formation of a French word it sounds like, so writing down something that sounds like what I've just heard. Even for the responses required in English because you don't need to convert everything into Eng whilst notetaking  Hope that made sense!

[Hokiksyo-min]

Yeah, write down anything that sounds important in the first run through.

Basically during listening I try to scribble down whatever basic formation of a French word it sounds like, so writing down something that sounds like what I've just heard. Even for the responses required in English because you don't need to convert everything into Eng whilst notetaking

I agree! In a German listening SAC I heard something that sounded like "we want to go into the grandpa tonight" so I wrote it down and figured out what it meant in the reading time. Moral of the story, definitely write in French/not English.

[vox nihili]

-look for key words and try to answer your questions with them the first time round
-on the second round, put the pen down and actually do some listening!

When you're writing, you're not listening. You'd be surprised how well this technique works.

[Blues Fan]

First of all, don't panic yet! You still have time to master listening. I always had trouble with French listening and panicked all the time when it came to listening. My teacher gave me some helpful tips which I would always abide to during my VCE tests, SACs and exams.

1. Read the question and understand what they are asking for so you don't re-read the question during listening time
2. Brain storm keywords that you might hear
e.g. what colour is the house? Brainstorm: red, blue, green, yellow.
3. When practising listening write down in the column for notes the possibilites. (In the exam you won't be able to, but as soon as the lady/man says "This paper is 2013.... Listening part A...." you can quickly write down the possibilities.
4. As soon as you hear words that match your list of possibilities, tick it off, saves time from writing it out while you listen to the rest of the dialogue.
5. Always take notes in French, unless you are 100% sure of the word in English.
6. Write down what your heard. You can always back track it and find out what it could be.
7. If all comes to worst, make an educated guess based on the information on the question, never leave a question out, you may get consequential marks for grammar.

Hope that helps. Also it helps if you go onto Youtube and listen to podcasts and that. Good luck! Bonne chance!

[the girl at the rock show]

I know that you said that you've been listening to French radio and French music for a long time without results, but I really believe that that's the best way to go. Except it's really important that you're able to understand what you hear. If you're just listening to songs and radio without any sort of comprehension, it's not going to help you much at all. I recommend sites such as RFI (le journal en francais facile) and TV5Monde ('apprendre' section), which have transcripts.

Something to try: listen to the clip over once, then listen with the clip again with the transcript (look up words you don't know and write down their definitions), and then listen once again without the transcript but with the list of new words. Keep listening/reading until you can understand 100% of the article. If you do this every day, you will definitely improve Once you can understand this spoken French, your listening tests at school will seem ridiculously slow.

Basically: listen to French that (you can understand) EVERY DAY.

[sparked]

Unfortunately it is just impossible to learn a language via osmosis. Listening to music and radio can complement your French studies greatly... but the studies have to be there in the first place.

Make sure you've nailed down your grammar to begin with. The more common grammar patterns and irregulars are especially important. Often you will hear subjunctive  - je sois... etc. or conditional, je n'aurais jamais pensé que etc. etc. and until you learn them on paper, you won't be able to recognise them aurally.

French exchange is the best thing you will ever do for improving your French.

You're in Year 10, don't stress! Maybe sign up for Alliance Francaise classes, get a native French tutor to practice speaking with. I didn't do Year 10 french, picked it up in Year 11 term 2 but my listening is strong because I am efficient with how I use my time!

[Cheddar Cheese]

sparked:
Wow! You've only been learning french for a year?!!! Thanks for the tips. I'm getting better!

Also, I've noticed that you're doing two languages this year. I'm interested in doing french and german for vce, and although latin is quite an outlier in terms of the course, I'd like to know how you're finding balancing two languages. The thing is that I'm significantly less adept in german than I am in french, but I know that if I do well in both of them, the scaling will be really good. I'm currently weighing german with biology - would you say biology is quite easy to lose marks in? And also, do you have to know how to use a microscope for the sacs? I'm so so sorry I'm derailing this thread haha, but I'd appreciate any first-hand info. Thanks heaps haha

[sparked]

Hahaha trust me this is not "derailing the thread".

So yes, I have been doing French for one year and am third or fourth in the SACs for my cohort which generally gets 3 or 4 scores in the 40s raw. I am working hard for 40 haha

I am doing two languages, I am doing Latin by distance, which means I teach myself the course and send in homework sets to the Victorian School of Languages for assessment, so in general I am motivated in my language studies in general.

Languages definitely complement each other. In saying that, getting a 45+ in biology is just hands down easier than getting an equivalent scaled score in German. French has better scaling and I would recommend you stick with it. If you have a chance to, I would do 3/4 biology in year 11, get a tutor if necessary, but just dedicate time to the course.

If you are going on French exchange your French will drastically improve. German is much more of a risk than biology. Biology is something I was passionate about myself though, so it also depends on what you will enjoy more.

If you want to, PM me and I can give you more in depth advice/ answers to specific questions. Otherwise, good luck with your French studies and talk to your VCE coordinator about German versus Biology!

[Limista]

sparked:
Wow! You've only been learning french for a year?!!! Thanks for the tips. I'm getting better!

Also, I've noticed that you're doing two languages this year. I'm interested in doing french and german for vce, and although latin is quite an outlier in terms of the course, I'd like to know how you're finding balancing two languages. The thing is that I'm significantly less adept in german than I am in french, but I know that if I do well in both of them, the scaling will be really good. I'm currently weighing german with biology - would you say biology is quite easy to lose marks in? And also, do you have to know how to use a microscope for the sacs? I'm so so sorry I'm derailing this thread haha, but I'd appreciate any first-hand info. Thanks heaps haha

Just thought I'd add to what 'sparked' said above  -->

I did German in year 12, and I thought it was very demanding. That said, I did enjoy it a lot, so I guess I didn't really think of the subject as 'work'. But I think if I did another language along with German, I probably wouldn't have survived year 12. To be honest, German is one of the tougher languages to become fluent in (mainly because the grammar is annoying to get your head around).
From what you said in your post, the fact that you are 'significantly less adept in German' is basically a sufficient enough reason not to pursue the language in year 12. Also, the 'scaling' advantage that you are weighing the cons with is not a good enough reason to take the language. If you do decide to pursue German, it should be because you absolutely and truly love the subject, then you're more likely to get an excellent score without having to worry about the scaling. I'm sure you've heard multiple VCE veterans tell you not to choose a subject because of the scaling; they are 100% correct.
Also, German and French are European languages. As a result, it is expected that they will share some similarities. The last thing you want to be doing, then, is confusing the rules for one language with the other.

Whilst the majority of this post may seem to be an attempt to dissuade you from picking up German for year 12, I'm just trying to help you out with your decisions based on my experiences. You're already doing French (from the tone of your post, you seem to be rather good at it  ) which scales highly, so you don't need to pick up another language solely for the scaling - one is enough!