GCSE and Pre GCSE Learners
So ... you are 11 years old, and you want to improve your French – or perhaps your parents think you need to improve your French?
No matter the circumstance, the first thing you must do is forget how it's done at school. This is private tuition and you are in some control over how it goes. You can stop the lesson (not to play computer games) at any time and ask me to repeat or change any explanation or application you did not understand.
Since you are 11, you are gearing towards GCSE, whether you are a beginner or have studied the language for a year or more. Therefore, you will have four skills to develop:
- speaking
- listening
- reading
- writing
While listening and reading skills will be dealt with through homework (yes, you will have it), writing and speaking will take our most attention.
Read a little more about his story to get to know the Tutor better.
Writing
Depending on your current level, we will start with numbers or the verbs (for an explanation, you may want to see this page) or possibly, the basics like masculine and feminine.
In school, you may have been told that the masculine and feminine in French must be learned by heart, for each of the hundreds of words you will have to learn. This is not only scary, it's also false.
In reality, there are shortcuts you can follow – and the good news is, they work! To make my point, 95% of nouns finishing with an –e or –ion are feminine, and the rest are masculine. If you can live with a 5% risk of mistakes, your problem is solved. Therefore, we would start by exploring the words (la, une, ma ...) that are affected by this notion of masculine and feminine.
We can go as fast or as slowly as you need to learn to use the tools necessary.
Sound good, see the trial lesson to get a taster.
Speaking
This is the fun part – at school, you have little opportunity to speak the language because the teacher usually does most of the talking, right? Now, it's your turn.
You will learn how to ask and answer questions, and I have many tricks up my sleeves to make this a snap. I guarantee that if you are a beginner, by the end of the first lesson, you will be able to recognise half a dozen questions, in any order, and answer them correctly, if you have the vocabulary. If you are a little more advanced, you will be able to ask and recognise any type of question and answer them correctly (again, if you have the vocabulary).
There is nothing more rewarding than visiting a foreign country and being able to ask another person any question you want without help.
If this sounds useful to you, see the trial lesson to get a taster.
Contact the Tutor to discuss the tuition options for GCSE students.