Dr Suzanne Kobeisse
It is June. The exams are close. Maybe the year has gone faster than anyone planned, or maybe the school French lessons have been patchy, or maybe your teenager has only just started to take things seriously. Whatever the reason you are reading this, I want to give you something useful rather than a lecture about starting earlier.
Here is the honest reality: four to six weeks of targeted work can still make a meaningful difference to a GCSE French grade. Not a miracle, not a transformation from grade 3 to grade 9, but a genuine improvement. I have seen it happen many times. The key is knowing where to put the effort.
Speaking is the component most students under-prepare
The speaking exam is usually the first to be sat. It is also the component that benefits most dramatically from last-minute focused preparation, because unlike reading or writing, speaking can be rehearsed almost like a performance.
Both AQA and Edexcel GCSE French speaking exams follow predictable structures: a photo card task, a role play, and a conversation on two themes. The themes are pre-released by the exam board. That means a student can, with some structured preparation, walk into the exam having practised responses to the most likely questions.
This is not about scripting word-for-word answers. The examiner will probe, and a student who has memorised rigid scripts will falter when the question comes from a slightly different angle. What works is building a bank of flexible phrases: ways to give opinions (je pense que, "I think that"), ways to disagree (par contre, "on the other hand"), ways to hesitate naturally (c'est-a-dire, "that is to say"). These are the building blocks that let a student adapt.
Spend two or three sessions in the final weeks on speaking alone. Record yourself. Listen back. It is uncomfortable, but it is one of the fastest ways to notice what needs work.
Vocabulary: go narrow, not broad
There is not time to learn the full GCSE word list from scratch. What there is time for is a strategic sweep of the topic areas that appear most consistently in the exams: family and relationships, school and work, health and lifestyle, the environment, technology, travel and holidays.
For each topic, a student needs a core of around thirty to forty words and phrases that unlock the ability to write and speak about it with some confidence. Not every word in that topic area. The core ones.
A useful exercise is to look at the mark scheme for past papers. The level descriptors for the higher writing and speaking grades consistently reward things like: a range of vocabulary, accurate tense use, and the ability to express and justify an opinion. That tells you exactly what the examiner wants to see. Build your revision around giving it to them.
Tenses: three will take you very far
Students sometimes try to master every French tense before the exam. This is a mistake in the last few weeks. Three tenses, used accurately and confidently, will unlock the higher grade descriptors far more reliably than six tenses used shakily.
The three are: the present tense for what is happening now, the perfect tense (le passé composé) for completed past events, and the future tense for what will happen. Those three cover the vast majority of what the GCSE writing and speaking components ask for.
If a student can produce sentences like je joue au football le week-end (present), hier, j'ai regardé un film (perfect), and l'année prochaine, je vais visiter Paris (near future), they are already demonstrating the kind of tense range that moves grades upward.
The imperfect tense is worth adding if there is time, because it allows students to describe what used to happen or how things were in the past. That opens up richer answers in the conversation and writing tasks. But only attempt it once the three core tenses are solid.
Reading and listening: past papers are the revision
For reading and listening, the most effective preparation is simply working through past papers under timed conditions. Not reading through mark schemes hoping the answers will stick. Actually sitting down, timing the exam, and then reviewing carefully where marks were lost.
The reading exam tests specific skills: understanding gist, identifying opinion, picking out detail. Students often lose marks not because their French is weak, but because they have not learned to read the questions carefully. A question asking for a student's opinion requires a different type of answer to a question asking for a fact. Practicing that distinction with real past papers is more valuable than almost any vocabulary drilling at this stage.
For listening, playing past paper audio at normal speed and pausing to check comprehension is far better than replaying the same short clip multiple times. The exam moves at a fixed pace. Revision should mirror that.
What I would do in five sessions
If a student came to me with five weeks to go and we had one session a week, here is roughly how I would structure it.
Week one: assess where the real gaps are. No assumption. An honest diagnostic.
Week two: speaking preparation for the photo card and role play. Building the flexible phrase bank.
Week three: vocabulary consolidation across the two or three weakest topic areas.
Week four: tense accuracy. Present, perfect, and near future drilled in writing and speech.
Week five: exam technique. Past paper work under timed conditions with detailed review.
That is not a guarantee of any particular grade. But it is a plan. And a student who arrives at the exam with a plan is in a fundamentally different position to one who has not had the conversation.
If your teenager is sitting GCSE French this summer and you think some focused tuition might help, I am happy to talk through what is realistic. Message me on WhatsApp and we can take it from there.