French SL or HL

[sraja90]

I dont know whether to take SL or HL. My teacher has been trying to convince me to take HL, but im worried that if i do, i may not get my diploma. So idk what to do?!?!?!

[Vvi]

How many years have you studied French? How is your vocabulary and and speech/pronounciation? The oral component of the HL is graded harsher than SL, since you are expected not to make obvious mistakes with masculine/feminine words, etc.

For HL, you have to learn more verb tenses than SL people. SL= Present, Past perfect, Pluperfect, Future, Conditional, Imperative and one other one that I can't remember right now. HL has all those, plus Past historic and the Subjonctif. You are also required to know more about French culture and traditions than SL.

I swapped this year to French HL because I want to study it in university. The test that I did 2 days ago wasn't any harder than the SL one, and my teacher said I did well on it. There may be more vocabulary, but the good thing is that in the text that you are given to read, you can always understand it in context.

Do you have any plans to study languages in university, even if it's not French? In that case, you would be better off showing the admissions officers that you truly care about languages by doing HL. But if not, I would advise SL. It's not worth it doing HL unless you need it, since it is harder to get a better mark and this would obviously affect your total number of points.

[__inthemaking]

If you're not going into languages, then I would take SL.

[moneyfaery]

For HL, you have to learn more verb tenses than SL people. SL= Present, Past perfect, Pluperfect, Future, Conditional, Imperative and one other one that I can't remember right now.

Past conditional, past simple, future simple, passé composé, imperfect? Those are easy though.

[humingyay]

In my IB school, they say that those students that have french background, as in a family member or have lived in France, may choose HL otherwise it is way too difficult for a student to have (especially French) HL in language. Of course it is not impossible but it takes quite some time; even in SL.

[Ginevra]

Hey, well at my school most students in the french class take french HL because they have been on exchange.

But some haven't, i reackon if your confident in french you should do it, maybe get a tutor or join french speaking or out side school programs!

Personally i suck at french!! but i love it so much:)

Hopefully i'll pass:P

[daniel6]

HL according to my teacher is alot more of the fine tuning of the french language. SL is basically learn your grammar, learn to write and use all the tenses, and learn to speak properly. HL deals with more complex literature, and also, more of the "slang" and french terms according to my teacher. It's difficult, and my teacher recommends that only native speakers or people who have a rigorous curriculum take the HL exam. Also, it depends how much time you're willing to put into french.

[Cubz]

I dunno if it works the same way for you guys but we have 3 levels of french at my school

Beginning, Continuing and Advanced.

So for example i study advanced atm (cos i went on exchange last year), but for IB I'll probs sit the continuing exam at higher level.....if that makes any sense

Cos for IB it doesn't matter what the level is a 7 is still a 7, and if you're worried about your other subjects then I would sugest taking an easy level but make it count for more.

HOpe it helps

Edited October 7, 2008 by Cubz

[monica]

I can only tell you how the situation is in my French group. I am the only SL student (therefore I do the same things as the HL people, without the literature though) and I only took it because I was afraid I couldn't handle HL. But now I can't say there's a big difference between us, concerning the vocabulary, grammar or fluency. I think French HL is not as difficult as it seems.

And if you're teacher encourages you to take HL, I'm sure he has his reasons . You shouldn't be worried about the failing IB because of that.

[jessjane]

Hmmm I have the same dilemma. I was wondering if anyone who does Higher Level could post an old task up or a criteria sheet..

That would be really helpful..

I attended a French Primary school and will be going on exchange to France for 2 months in November so hopefully that may ease my decision for higher level..

Could someone please post some HL work up or something?

Thank you in advance!

Jess

[sraja90]

Well, it also depends on how well you think you can do in your other exams. If they can cover you and get you the 28, then take HL, and ofcourse if you want to. But if your worried about the diploma so much, you might want to stick to SL.

[hardworker]

I dont know whether to take SL or HL. My teacher has been trying to convince me to take HL, but im worried that if i do, i may not get my diploma. So idk what to do?!?!?!

I think that you should take HL and if you see that you are going to get less than a 6, drop to SL. It is always easier to drop down to SL than bump up to HL

[luk3tm]

Depends on your ability in french. Take some sort of external exam like IGCSEs to get some sort of gauge on how good you are. Personally, I am doing French B SL and find that challenging enough but I know lots of people that take French B HL but they have some sort of french background

[IBdoc]

French B HL is way harder than SL! They go more into depth, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who isn't fluent in french. If you only use french in your french classes don't take it at higher level. If you do speak french with your friends, family etc... Take it.

[may_2010]

I'm taking french SL

I asked my french teacher and she said that in both SL and HL french you're learning the same things in terms of all the grammar, and verb tenses there is to know

the difference is how well you are able to apply those concepts. For example, for the HL written exam you have to write a 450 word composition whereas with SL you only have to write 250 words in the same amount of time. Also, they obviously mark you easier if you're in SL.

[Unperfect]

B HL is still easy for a bilingual right?

Because right now I'm taking French A and English A, however languages aren't my strongest area, so I'm looking for an easy 7 at the I.B. and my coordinator suggested me staying in the A class but passing the B Orals and tests.

EDIT: I just saw the French B HL 2007 papers, easy(for me at least). I'll take that instead of A lol that gives me 5 HL

Anyway good luck anyone who's taking French B SL or HL

Edited November 16, 2008 by Unperfect

[Hyperbole]

I'm taking French B HL, and I think the SL-HL difference seems to be smaller than it is for, say, a science. But I think what level you take it on should depend on what you're planning to do after the IB: if you're going to study languages or work with something where speaking another language is useful (is there a profession where this isn't the case?!) I think you're better of taking it at HL.

I also don't think you need to be fluent in French to do well at it. I certainly wasn't when I started IB1, and I wouldn't count myself as fluent now. I'm still predicted a seven. It just really depends on how much work you're prepared to put into it: my strategy has been to do -all- the homework (learn the words for real, and know the verbs) plus read as many books in French as I've had time for. It seems to have worked, and my conclusion is that you shouldn't need to be fluent in French to take it at HL.

Slightly off-topic:

that gives me 5 HL

I didn't think you were allowed to sit exams with more than four HLs? My IB coordinator forced me to decide what four HLs to continue with because the IB wouldn't let him register me for five... I would have wanted to continue with only Maths at SL, but I wasn't allowed to. I guess I'm glad I wasn't by this time (IB2, graduating in May 2009!) because it would have been too much work, but I was fully capable of doing those five HLs in IB1. (It's strange - after switching to four HLs in May last year, I switched to only three in September this year. I felt so unspecial at first. )

(Wow, it's difficult to remember all the things you want to include in one go. Second edit, here I come...)

I definitely agree with the suggestion above that you could try French HL and drop down if it's too hard. However, I wouldn't say it's impossible to "drop up", because there are two girls in my class who have done that, and they're doing fine. I think they were failing Biology HL, so they needed to change subjects between IB1 and IB2, and after attempting HL exams for French they were allowed to take that instead. I think French (language B in general, perhaps) is one of those subjects where you can do that, because the syllabi aren't super different. Now, I don't know what they're predicted in French, but I'm quite certain it is not lower than a five, and that's not bad. So... don't worry too much if you find that you've chosen the wrong level?

Edited November 16, 2008 by Hyperbole

[Unperfect]

Actually my coordinator isn't sure about that, at worst I'll do French B SL but thats simply to easy for me, I help mostly all the B SL people for their homework

I was investigating into French A2 but my school doesn't offer that :/

Coming back to SL vs HL i would say it depends on one's wish for a career, because HL basically wants you to have a better use of French expressions and to do things such as exaggerations, hyperboles etc, whereas my SL friends do more or less only vocabulary and verbs, even though tey do get to do some stylistic writing, they do less and only later in the year.

[posse02]

Depending on what field you are going into and the level of french you have right now,

I would recommend SL unless you are fluent in the language.

Depending on the career, French might be totally useless, or useful.

Its your decision, think about your future and choose according to that.

[ivy12003]

For us, French HL is the highest average out of all the subjects at our school. To be in HL, you don't have to be perfectly fluent, but you have to be a very hard worker. Depending on what your other courses are and how much time you're willing to spend on revision, I might go for SL.