Wondering how to get confirmed gce syllabus? This is the official 2018 waec gce syllabus for French. I will make it available for download later. 

FRENCH

1. PREAMBLE

The French syllabus is drawn from the Senior High School curricular of member countries and seeks to impact students with the requisite knowledge, skills, attitudes and values to communicate effectively in French for personal development and understanding of and participation in the affairs of the Sub-region and the world at large.

2. GENERAL AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

This syllabus is intended to test the candidates’ ability to use the four language skills namely, listening, speaking, reading and writing to promote communicative competence .

3. SCHEME OF EXAMINATION

There will be three papers – Papers 1, 2 and 3, all of which should be taken. Papers 1 and 2 will be a composite paper, to be taken at one sitting.

PAPER 1 : Will consist of forty multiple choice questions, to be answered within 1 hour for 40 marks.

PAPER 2 : Will consist of two sections with three essay questions each. Candidates will be required to answer two questions in all, one question from each section. Both questions will be answered within 1 hour 15 minutes for 40 marks.

PAPER 3 : Will test candidates’ listening comprehension, and reading and conversation abilities. Each candidate will require 40 minutes for the test. The paper will carry 50 marks.

4. DETAILED SYLLABUS

More detailed requirements for the tests are as follows:

PAPER 1

Section A: Comprehension

This is designed to test candidates’ ability to read and understand standard written documents in French.

Two passages, each of about 150 words, will be provided and a total of five short questions will be set on each. The questions in this section will be multiple- choice questions only. Candidates will be required to answer al lquestions.

Section B: Structure

This section is designed to test candidates’ ability to use, inappropriate communicative contexts, French words, expressions and structural patterns. Thirty short questions will be set and candidates will be required to attempt all of them.

PAPER 2

This paper is made up of two sections: (a) Essay and (b) Letter writing. It will test candidates’ ability to write freely and correctly on topics of general interest, using the appropriate structures, registers and tenses.

Section A: Essay

Section B: Letter writing

Three questions will be set on each. Candidates are expected to answer one question only from each section. The expected length of each composition will be about 100 words.

PAPER 3

Listening Comprehension

This paper will test candidates’ ability to listen to, and understand a straightforward passage in French. The test which will be based on a passage to be read aloud by the examiner will be about 200 words long. It will deal with issues of general interest. During the first 10 minutes, the passage will be read twice. Candidates will study the questions for

3 minutes before the second reading. At the end of the second reading, candidates will be allowed 7 minutes to answer, in writing, 10 questions based on the passage. The questions may not be multiple-choice questions only but may also include other forms of language testing such as open-ended questions, transformation and substitution.

(b) Reading

The aim is to test candidates’ ability to read aloud, with the appropriate pronunciation and fluency. For this purpose, a simple passage of about 100 words will be provided. The passage will be of contemporary interest. In principle, candidates will be asked to read once and at a normal pace.

(c) Conversation

The conversation test will last about 10 minutes per candidate. Topics to be discussed will be drawn from themes of general and contemporary interests such as sports, health, leisure, education, politics, culture, etc. There will be two sections, one on dialogue and the other on exposition, as follows:

Dialogue – This will test candidates’ ability to express themselves freely in a dialogue. For this purpose, candidates will be expected to respond to a minimum of ten questions. For Ghana, five of these questions will be on selected literature texts.

Exposition – This will test candidates’ ability to speak freely on a given topic in French .The candidate is expected to make a minimum of 5 sentences.

6. NOTES ON THE SYLLABUS

(1) Structure

This will be tested, as far as possible, within suitable communicative contexts. To this end, candidates are expected to be familiar with the following:

Parts of speech (Grammatical categories)

Articles – definite, indefinite, partitive. (Gender and number where applicable).

Verbs

(a) Types: regular and irregular

(b) Common moods and tenses

(c) Standard expressions such as

– avoir + noun (e.g. avoir faim)

– venir de + infinitive.

Nouns – complements, gender, number

Pronouns – personal, possessive, indefinite, demonstrative, relative, impersonal, (number and gender where applicable).

Adjectives – possessive, demonstrative, indefinite interrogative, (agreement and position)

Adverbs – formation and position, special adverbs: mal, vite, fort, tout, etc.

Negatives – negative expressions (ne…pas, ne…rien, ne… jamais, etc.)

Conjunctions in common use: et, mais, donc, , ou, parce que, etc

Preposition – à, de, sur, en, devant , etc.

Sentence patterns (declarative, interrogative, exclamative, etc)

Voice – active/passive

Direct speech/reported speech

Compound and complex sentences

Idiomatic expressions& proverbs

Forms of writing (formal/informal)

Context and meaning e.g. to convey politeness, disgust, disappointment.

Common figures of speech e.g. (similes, metaphors, hyperbols)

Structures of major “Acte de Parole” e.g. (exprimer ladeception, la probation, le degout, la surprise, le plaisir, le regret, etc.

7. SUGGESTED READING LIST

The following may be of assistance to the candidates:

1. Course books

(i) De Grandsaigne, J: – France-Afrique 4, Lagos, Macmillan

(ii) Plaisant, Chantal, et al: –Trans Afrique 3, Lagos, Macmillan

(iii) Ajiboye, Tunde et al: – Nouvel Horizon 4, Ibadan, Bounty

Press Ltd.

(iv) Mazauric, Catherine et al: – On y va 3, Ibadan, Spectrum

Books

(v) Berard, Evelyne et al: – Tempo 1 & 2, Didier, Hatier

(vi) Task Force (MEST): – – Et en français 1 – 3, Freetown

(vii) Girardet J. &Pécheir J: – écho junior A2 méthode de français, Paris : CLÉ

Internationale

2. General Grammar Books

(i) Ajiboye, T.: – Companion to French Grammar,

Ilorin, Info-Links Publishers

(ii) Ferrar H. A: – French Reference Grammar,

OxfordUniversity Press

(iii) Dangnaud-Macé, P &Sylès, G.

LeFrançais sans faute, Paris, Hatier

(iv) Le Nouveau Bescherelle: – La grammaire pour tous ,

Paris : Hatier

(v) Soyoye, F. A: – Manuel de conjugaison de verbes,

Sophire Ed. Resources

3. Any other useful grammar books

4. ORAL Practice

(i) Ajiboye, T: – An Introduction to Practice in Oral French , Revised

edition, Ibadan, Bounty Press Ltd.

(ii) Grandsaigne,J: – France Afrique 5, Lagos , Macmillan

(iii) Adegbilero, L. M – Teaching Yourself French (with cassette/CD)

Revised edition, Ibadan, Bounty Press Ltd.

(iv) Chamberlain, Alan & Steele Ross

Guide pratique de la

communication , Paris, Didier

Any other useful document designed for Oral Practice

5. Literature (Ghana only)

(a) J. N. D. Dodoo: La Belle Fleure et d’autres Histoires, Accra

(b) TundeAjiboye: Olurounbi ou Le Prix d’un Pari

(c) Hector, Malot: Sans Famille, Paris

6. Dictionaries/Glossaries

(i) Any useful French dictionary e.g.

– Micro Robert/Petit Robert

– Petit Larousse

– Dictionnaire du français fondamental pour l’Afrique

(ii) Any useful French – English/English-French dictionary e.g.

Shorter Harraps

Collins

Cassell’s

(iii) Any useful French glossary e.g.

Français Fondamental for West Africa, WAEC, Accra, Black Mask

Ltd,

To enhance comprehension skills, extracts from simple modern literary and other texts (magazines, newspapers, brochures, etc.) dealing with contemporary issues may be of immense assistance.