Course assessmentPerformance Talking task (10 minutes)

Time to talk

(30 marks)

The Performance-talking will be a conversation between you and your French teacher and you must cover at least two of the four contexts at Higher.

• Society
• Learning
• Employability
• Culture

The talk will be recorded or filmed and may be sent to the SQA if requested.

Expressions used in the assignment-writing (see glossary) can be transferred over to enhance your talking performance eg Personnellement, j’adore porter l’uniforme scolaire, parce que… (Personally, I love wearing the school uniform because….)

You can use notes or prompts during the conversation comprising of up to five headings of not more than eight words per heading, however you are not allowed to read word for word from your notes!

When preparing for your Performance-Talking, remember to use detailed and complex language as your final score will be based on a set of graded marks which are 30 or 27, 24 or 21, 18 or 15, 12 or 9, 6 or 3 and 0. Marks are determined from a marking grid covering:

• language
• content
• accuracy
• language resources

The teacher decides which of the two possible grades you will get and if at the upper or lower level of the band.

Remember to plan ahead – think of topics which you have lots of ideas about, or topics which lend themselves to good, in-depth discussion allowing you to use detailed and complex language.

Use a wide range of expressions to convey your ideas and refer to the glossary provided to give you some ideas for both the Assignment–Writing and Performance-Talking.

Practise on your class mates asking for their feedback on your delivery, ideas expressed and complexity of language. Or ask your French Assistant or a native speaker to pick their brains if you can about whether you are heading in the right direction with your preparations for the final Talking exam.

Example

Think of the ways you could demonstrate a point – look at this response based on the context of Learning:

"Cette année je suis en train d’étudier cinq matières - c’est-à-dire (+ subjects), mais l’année dernière, j’ai étudié sept matières y compris (+ subjects) à l’avenir après avoir passé mes examens au niveau (Higher) je voudrais continuer mes études au niveau (Advanced Higher) pour que je puisse aller à l’université de (name of University) pour étudier (+ subjects)»

"This year I’m currently studying five subjects – that’s to say – (subjects), but last year, I studied seven subjects including (subjects). In the future after having sat my exams at Higher level, I would like to continue my studies at Advanced Higher level, so that I can go and study (subjects) at (name of University)""