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Author Topic: Guide to Listening in French  (Read 4818 times)  Share 

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smamsmo22

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Guide to Listening in French
« on: February 19, 2019, 05:44:58 am »
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Salut AN!

I would like to preface this post by saying this is the first time I’ve ever written a guide for.. anything… and I’m definitely not a qualified teacher by any means, so bear with me. From my experience studying French and that of others, I understand that listening is an indisputable part of the course which can be a common struggle for students, and I think i would’ve benefitted from having some sort of resource/guide/source of encouragement to help me tackle it (ESPECIALLY since skills in French like reading, writing and listening are all so closely aligned, and improvement in one easily translates to improvement in the others).

If you're wondering how I did...
Spoiler
I completed VCE in 2018, including 3/4 French, for which I achieved a study score of 44 (scaled 51+) and A+’s for all 3 assessments. On a more important note, my most significant achievement in French last year was improvement (indicated by my SAC results, as well as my own and my teacher’s observations). In listening in particular.
If you're wondering how I was feeling this time last year (long before all those achievements)...
Spoiler
Leading up to this last year (my year 12 year), listening was always the aspect of French I struggled with the most. It was always the area that I received the lowest mark for, and the skill that always managed to leave me feeling lost. I never went on exchange and I never had a tutor. I specifically remember crying to my mother over the summer holidays about how absolutely screwed I was for listening and how I couldn’t understand anything and how I was going to be the worst in the class.
TLDR... pretty crap

This is really dragging on, but basically I managed to boost my marks/performance, and more importantly my confidence, in listening to a great extent over the year and I would love to share with you the ways I enabled this. I accumulated a few tips and resources, so I decided to compile them, in the hope that they help someone, somewhere :D


Here are my general tips;

1. There are an abundance of opportunities to practice- so USE THEM!! Walking/public transport is the perfect time to listen to French, more or less distraction free. Everyday ‘active transport’ like walking to school/the station/the shops can be spent listening to French, and you aren’t cutting into study/family/recreation/free time. Another bonus, it’s nowhere near as mentally demanding than writing essays or completing practice papers, but it is super beneficial (given you can focus for the majority of the time).
2. Don’t be discouraged if you’re not understanding the news/native speakers. You aren’t expected to be at the level of a native speaker in VCE, and if you’re listening to long segments of jargon-infiltrated, relatively fast-paced French, do NOT feel hopeless if you feel absolutely lost at the end. Luckily, there are plenty of resources that are more at the level of VCE, but even so, you’ll always come across those texts that go completely over your head. Don’t be too hard on yourself.
3. Keep at it!! Practice makes improvement, and every moment you spend practicing is exposing you to things that will ultimately benefit you.  Sometimes it will feel like you’re not getting anywhere, but from someone who’s been there, it will pay off in the end!! Especially in French, where listening in French will also benefit your speaking and writing skills.
4. Go into every task with confidence, even if it’s completely false and based on absolutely no evidence or logic. You can ace this task, you are a competent French speaker and you will hear and understand.


What resources did I use?

- Radio French Internationale (http://www.rfi.com.au). I would try to listen to an installation of the ‘Journal en français facile’ (https://savoirs.rfi.fr/fr/apprendre-enseigner/langue-francaise/journal-en-francais-facile) at least a couple of times a week. What I’d do was search up a recent episode, play it (usually twice through) on my way home from school and take down any words/sounds/phrases I didn’t understand (just on the Notes app or something). Afterwards, I’d spend 5 or so minutes reading the transcript to gauge how well I’d understood the episode and skim for any of my list of words (otherwise I’d search them up) and then note their definitions. I found this website particularly useful because;
    1. As the episodes are en français facile, the speed and complexity of language is much more manageable than most other French news resources I came across (aka the ones that move at the speed of light, filled with all sorts of jargon which an Australian student is not going to be familiar with in the slightest).
    2. Episodes were short (~10 minutes), easily accessible online and FREE
    3. Episodes are released everyday, so I never had to worry about eventually running out
    4. (This was a big one) There is a transcript for every episode, which I found SO helpful to read through afterwards (or even put through Google Translate) just to see how well I’d understood the content and see if I could pull up any of the unknown words I’d heard while listening, which was a GREAT way to help build up vocabulary.
    5. There are also other activities on the website such as quizzes to help consolidate your learning/listening; while listening on its own to French is important, ensuring you’ve understood it to the best of your ability is vital as well.
    6. The podcasts are archived online and are downloadable to iTunes, so if you want to download them to listen to while you don’t have access to Internet or something, its pretty simple.
    7. Staying up to date with what’s going on in the world is always a good thing :D
- Coffee Break French ( https://radiolingua.com/tag/cbf-season-4/)… Specifically, Season 4. I used this podcast over the summer holidays and found it was a really great resource, providing longer episodes (still under 20min) with a good amount of English and French. Basically, the presenters listened to a short instalment of a story in each episode (around a minute long, perhaps??) and discussed it afterwards, offering a brief English summarisation followed by a more in depth discussion of around 3 French phrases/words/constructions that came up during the text. Here’s why;
    1. Episodes are directed at English speakers, which is nice compared to the standard French news, and season 4 IMO provides a level of difficulty which is pretty applicable to VCE French and can often be hard to find in listening resources.
    2. Episodes are FREE and easily accessed on iTunes. There are also extra online resources via the website which you can pay for (which sounded really helpful too) if you’re interested too, which go into the texts more deeply and provide transcripts I believe.
    3. The texts were really similar to the kind of stuff you’ll hear in class IMO (which can be hard to find online) in terms of pace. length and content.
    4. The discussion of the text afterwards was really helpful to (again) gauge how well you’d understood and the presenters offered some really great info, covering noteworthy grammatical points, idiomatic French expressions etc.
- Ecoutez-Bien (https://www.ecoutezbien.com/). This is a website which is the most student-focused, with plenty of practice tasks which are pretty similar to what you’ll find in class which provide questions and answers (ie; these aren’t for just listening to on the way home from school). Unfortunately the majority of the site isn’t free (I was given access from a teacher with a subscription) but I don’t believe it’s expensive. I’d definitely give the free trial a go :P Here are some pros;
    1. Plenty of VCE-level texts and exercises that are pretty quick to complete. The website gives you a good taste of the type of listening comprehension you’ll be doing in the exam.
    2. Questions and provided answers/marking schemes are clear and understandable IMO
    3. Both French and English transcripts are provided (as well as extra notes on the context of the texts iirc)
- French movies/documentaries/TV/music. These don’t need much of an explanation, and fortunately they’re everywhere. Personally, I didn’t watch a whole heap of French movies or listen to heaps of music, especially compared to some other students but if you’ve got time to spare it’s definitely a great way to (more enjoyably) build listening skills. Plus, you can find something that appeals to your personal interests :) (eg; listening to a broadcast of your favourite sport with French commentary). Youtube has plenty of content, and I believe you can find movies for free at http://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/movies/french-conne5.tions and on Netflix.
- VCAA past exams. (https://www.vcaa.vic.edu.au/Pages/vce/studies/lote/french/exams.aspx). Once again, pretty self explanatory. These will obviously give you the best taste of what’s to come this year and you should definitely have a go at (all of) them at some point! (Even if its just the listening section(s) done on its own. However, I saved the majority for late in the year… it’s up to you how you ration them out :P

Well, that’s about as much as I can give, I think. Sorry if it got unnecessarily long at points :/ Ultimately, I hope I’ve sparked some motivation and encouragement within some of you and my rambles and resources will be of some assistance to your studies this year.
French is a really enjoyable and unique subject and listening is a very valuable (albeit often frustrating) skill to develop (and it’s always developing, believe me). While making improvements may take more external/self-directed learning than your other subjects, I found you can practice in ways that are practical, engaging and fascinating, and in retrospect I’m SO glad I made the effort. From someone who saw themselves as quite incompetent in this area around 12 months ago, I can say with certainty with a little extra work and persistence you can make massive changes and totally surprise yourself.

Best of luck with your studies, and more specifically, your listening!! I’m happy to answer any questions/listen to your rants/offer extra advice on here or via PM so don’t hesitate to reach out!!
You got this!! Vous pouvez le faire!!


-smamsmo22
2018 - VCE - ATAR: 99.75 [English, Chemistry, Methods, French, PE, Bio]
2019 - Monash