Please view this page to see what my goals were for this year and more specifically this quarter
Quarter 3: What I did
Speaking
During the quarter I tried to speak with someone else in french at least once a week. This definitely didn't happen every week however I definitely think it was very close to each week. Here is a recording of Ana and I speaking in french. In addition to Ana and Si, I tried to talk to other french students throughout this year in french when I could. Essentially trying to incorporate the language into my life as much as I could.
Listening
This quarter I intentionally did less listening activities than I did last semester. Something I noticed this quarter was that although I could understand a lot of what people said to me or the things I read, I couldn't communicate at the same level. Because of this I chose to do less listening to podcasts and watching shows than I did last semester. I still listened to some Coffee Break French, and watched a show in french. The show I watched was extremely modern as it was about a family in france that was Jewish and had close friends that were Arab. The show was also centered around the idea of France legalizing marijuana. It was called Family Business.
Reading
Same as for listening here, I decided to focus less on reading and more on communicating. Specifically on writing. I started to read the french news.
Another reading exercise I did was translating this poem.
Writing
In preparation for the AP exam I have been working on various writing exercises that we were going to be tested on. However, at this point I am not sure what will be on the exam. The move to remote learning that happened at the end of this quarter has also meant that AP exams are being shortened to be 45 minutes. What exactly will be on the exam will be released on April 3rd.
I started writing a persuasive essay in french and struggled a lot with this. I used a prompt from the Barron's AP French book. After I attempted it I talked to my mentor Nikki about it to get some further guidance. She gave me notes and I didn't get around to trying to write one again.
I also wrote a practice for the email response.
In addition to my meetings with my mentor Nikki, I have also been going to AP practice sessions every Monday after school. I've also been studying French culture in preparation for the exam. Due to the switch to remote learning there are now 45 minute online live AP reviews. They are recorded and on Youtube after the live session is over. This is great because I can now go back and look at the pieces which I need more work on. These are my notes from a live session
The exam has themes of culture, which I've divided into different weeks. Here was a braindump I did for one of the themes and some of the aspects of that theme.
Lastly, I have redone my schedule for french to reflect the shortened AP exam. Here that is,
What I'm Doing Next
Once I know what the AP exam will look like I'll have more of an ability to decide what I need to do next in preparation for it. I think that this last quarter I've been a little all over the place and that I need to narrow in on things. I need to make sure I'm finishing what I start and doing things of value rather than lots of things.
Quarter 4: AKA School From Home
This quarter I focused all of my energy on preparing for the AP french exam. Due to the move to remote learning the exam was also shifted to just being the cultural comparison and conversation. In the cultural comparison we are given two minutes to respond to a prompt on comparing two different cultures. The conversation is with a pre-recorded person who we are given 20 seconds to respond to.
I researched French Culture in preparation for the cultural comparison.
I researched French Culture in preparation for the cultural comparison.
After I completed this research I did some audio recordings responding to prompts from the Barron's AP book.
An excerpt from my narrative on my feelings about the AP test.
"When I took the exam itself I didn’t feel like I did awful on it. I felt pretty good about it and that I did as well as I could have given how I prepared. On the cultural comparison part I think I did pretty well. I got a prompt about why it was important to learn a second language in different places. Which wasn’t too challenging given the knowledge I had. The conversation piece was a bit more challenging. We had 20 seconds to respond to each thing the recording said. On a few of them I felt that I needed more time and on a few of them I felt I needed less time. Overall I’m hoping that all evens out."
Closing Thoughts
In the last quarter I definitely think I could have done more work on French and wish I had. I think it's important to factor in that the last quarter was definitely the toughest in my other classes as well. In the end I’m happy I took the AP exam no matter what my final score is. I think that the score wasn’t the important part. Having a goal that I was working towards at the end of my study and working towards something were the important parts of this. The score does serve as a form of measurement of my french understanding, however I don’t plan on ending my french education here. This benchmark is simply a point to move forward from and not something to beat myself up about.