AP French notes-May 2011

From AP French Digest:

New AP Exam: Notes of Workshop 3/18/11

General Comments:
• You don’t have to cover all the recommended contexts but you do have to cover all the themes. The
recommended contexts are just suggestions for covering the themes. (so this is good if you don’t want to
talk about “gender and sexuality”)
• Having students perform memorized dialogues is of little use because they need to be ready for
spontaneous speech.
• There is no separate cultural trivia section. Students are expected to understand cultural information
presented but don’t have to know cultural info outside of the source on the test.
• Audio will be given in accents from around the francophone world, not just France.
• Practice literary and journal texts but also announcements, ads, letters, maps, tables, etc.
• For audio, practice with scripted dialogues, interviews, podcasts (example: on how to do something; or
on advice for reaching a goal), public service announcements, brief lectures, audio guides (like museum
guides or travel guides)
• Instructions on every part of the test will be given in English and French in writing. So make sure kids
know so they don’t waste their time reading both (they shouldn’t have to read either by the time they get
to the test)
• the one thing I see as not super clear yet is the grading. There are preliminary rubrics online (final ones
in April) right now but they said there would be no more counting simple/advanced structures to
determine scores on the writing and speaking, but it still wasn’t clear then how they would determine
scores. They said that the first test will determine the baselines.
• basically we have to start prepping this test format from French 1 with any authentic listening we can
• for the science and technology theme you don’t have to do technical stuff. Consider topics of general
social interest like something on advantages and disadvantages of nuclear power.
• use the essential questions they have provided per theme to have a focus of what they should get out of
each theme
• everything is scored 1-5 now.

 ____________________________________________________________________________________________
The test:
• The course and exam description is on the College Board site. It is 104 pages and includes
enough sample questions for a whole sample exam.
http://media.collegeboard.com/digitalServices/pdf/ap/AP_French_LangCED.pdf
• There will also be a sample exam in June.
• all audio will be played twice.
• Each audio on the listening portion will average 2 -2 ½ minutes in length. None will be longer
than 3 minutes.
• Each task and source material comes with an advance organizer and time to preview the
questions. This situates the students to the topic, location, etc. of the text or audio material and
also tells them where the source is from (RTL, magazine, etc.) and the length it will be if audio.
Also tells them which theme it is from.
• when there is a table or a map on the test, it will never be alone. It will have test or audio with it.
• Multiple Choice section: there will be 4 reading sets during 40 minutes. Then 2 sets that combine
reading and listening and then 3 listening sets.
 Vocab will be in context, so kids are supposed to get the meaning from the context.
 mix of factual and interpretive questions
 should be able to identify purpose of text/audio, point of view of writer/speaker, audience, make
inferences and conclusions
 questions of cultural or interdisciplinary nature will be to show they understand the info in the
audio or text, not that they know something specific outside of that source.
 in reading an interpersonal text, students should be able to identify the appropriate reply to a
letter or ad or choose the logical follow up question for an interviewer
 in a presentation text they should be able to identify how the author supports his arguments; and
what secondary source one would use to present on the same topic
 for the combined sets in multiple choice: they should be able to identify how the audio and text
source relate. And point out general phenomena, specific example, point of view, counterpoint of
debate. This is the hardest part of the multiple choice.
 for listening sets: there will be 1 minute preview time to read advance organizer and skim
questions. Then they will play the audio the first time. Then there will be one minute to start
answering questions. Then they will play the audio a second time. Then there will be more time
given to finish answering questions. This time will be 15 seconds times number of questions

 Free response: there are 4 tasks: 1. interpersonal writing 2. presentational writing 3.

interpersonal speaking 4. presentational speaking and they are in that order. More details below:


• Free response part 1: interpersonal writing: students read a message and write a reply. They
have to respond to and questions or requests in the message and also must provide or ask for
other details about something mentioned in the message. The writing in this section is to be
formal register. They will have 15 minutes to read and reply. There is no word count here, the
point is to reply and comment on everything. Include culturally appropriate responses like thanks,
apology, etc. Organization isn’t important. It’s not an essay. It can potentially be very short. What’s
important is to answer and comment on everything, not to ignore anything.


• Free response part 2: presentational writing. they will write a persuasive essay on a specific
topic. they will get a print source and an audio source that will have 2 different viewpoints. There
will also be a third source (map, chart, etc) that is purely informational to cite from.
 They must provide examples and cite/describe/explain why they are relevant. They should
include transition words, and be able to describe, explain, narrate, summarize, compare, persuade
(variety of communicative functions).
 There will be 1 minute to read the directions (start reading text now). Then 6 minutes to read the
text, then the audio will be played twice. Then 40 minutes to write the essay. They keep the print
material in front of them the whole time.
 They should take notes during the audio to remember examples.
 In citing sources in essay, they don’t need to write the whole name of the source (that takes time
and the readers know the sources, so they can just write “in source 1”).
 the text is somewhat long so they should scan, underline examples to use in essay
 just like in the multiple choice, the context is given for the audio and text in an advance organizer.
They get another 30 seconds to read that.
 ideas for how kids should learn to take the notes on audio: consider a t-chart where they put text
ideas on one side and listening on other (since they have distinct viewpoints); or always expect
them to pull out 2 ideas and an example from every audio source you practice with and get them
to tell purpose/audience.
 focus on only audio before ever practicing persuasive essay
 • Free response part 3: interpersonal speaking. This is the only part that’s similar to the Spanish
exam, but it’s still harder. This is a simulated conversation. Topic and situation are again defined
in advance. They get an outline of the conversation. They have 1 minute to read the outline and
then the conversation starts. This will always be an informal situation with a friend.
 Suggestion was to have kids spend their minute underlining the verbs in their part of the
conversation on the outline so they can focus on “what they have to do”. Then the conversation
starts.
 The person talking on the CD says their first part of the conversation and the kids have 20 seconds
to reply. They are told what they need to talk about (like “tell her what you think and give a
suggestion”). There will be fix responses of 20 seconds each. This will be graded as a whole, not a
separate grade for each response
 they should practice formulas to start and end conversations; react appropriately to situations
like sympathy, apology, etc.; state and support and opinion; reply to questions and requests in an
exchange
 you could use some Spanish ones to practice but you’ll need to make the guided reply more
specific (apparently Spanish will say “reply” or “answer her question”, but we are more specific)

• Free response part 4: presentational speaking. This is the hardest part. There is no source
material. They refer to what they have studied and their own experiences. They get 4 minutes to
plan and 2 minutes to speak. This is an oral presentation and will always be considered a
presentation to your class.
 best grade needs to connect relevantly to the francophone world with own experiences

 bolded part here is the question that changes per test and non-bolded part is always the same:
Dans votre communauté, quels genres d’événements ou d’activités sont considérés des
manifestations de patriotisme ? Comparez vos observations d’une communauté où vous avez vécu
avec vos observations d’une région du monde francophone que vous connaissez. Dans votre
exposé, vous pouvez faire référence à ce que vous avez étudié, vécu, observé, etc.
 need specific example
 pull something from own culture relevant to each theme to practice and compare with specific
example in francophone world
 if draw blank, start writing intro to get started
 rephrasing question is okay because you are performing an oral presentation so you can state
your topic.
 consider practicing shorter amounts first
_____________________________________________________________________________________
AP Audit/course ideas:
• There are sample syllabi online and a checklist.
• you don’t have to necessarily change everything you do now. Look at what you do that could
already work. You can integrate the themes, some things cover more than one theme. You don’t
have to do one them at a time and be finished with it.
• you don’t have to spend equal time on every theme.
• you can send the same syllabus as someone else in your district
• consider reading just excerpts of novels rather than whole novels to fit more in.
• example: excerpts of the book un sac de billes (WWII)—theme global challenges. Consider for
the audio source témoignages juifs from something like La France Divisée you can get from AATF
Some resources:
• website of University of Montreal has some podcasts interviewing students from different parts
of the francophone world
• Radio Nations Unies
• look for free podcasts in itunes. It might be best to find the ones you want from the actual source
first (RTL, etc.) and then search for that specific one in itunes. Consider saving to disk, drive, etc.
because sometimes they disappear after a while.