AP French | Complete Exam Prep BUNDLE (Audio, Essay, Convo, Cultural Comparison)

This bundle combines three key resources for AP exam prep:

1) Persuasive Essay Task Template & Guide

2) Part B & Essay Audio Graphic Organizer

3) Conversational Task Practice

4) Cultural Comparison Task Template & Guide

You can read the individual descriptions of each item in the bundle below & see previews by looking at each item on my page. I hope you will find them useful in the coming months as you prepare your students for the AP!

Persuasive Essay Task Template

As an AP Teacher, I always stressed about how to coach my students in the writing of the Persuasive Essay.  While the Juniors and Seniors in my courses were no strangers to essay writing for English and History courses, few of them had experience writing a persuasive essay within the constraints of the AP French Exam requirements.  

This product is the result of years of tinkering with a template for successful essay writing both as a whole class and with students in one-on-one sessions.

Why choose this template ?

• One of the most common pitfalls of AP essay writing is the tendency to  summarize rather than synthesize the three sources.  While some students are aware of this, they often need a bit more guidance in HOW to synthesize sources into themes, strategies of which are not provided in the commonly available test review materials.  This template provides a graphic organizer for how to break your essay into themes.

• Students feel less overwhelmed by the exam-day experience when they have practiced with a template

Part B & Essay Audio Graphic Organizer

Students routinely cite the Part B audio excerpts and the audio portion of the Persuasive Essay among the most difficult tasks of the exam. Improving listening proficiency is a holistic process that takes the brain longer than a few months of exam-cramming to accomplish. So how can we get students up to speed and more confident in a short amount of time?

¨To get better at listening, you need to keep listening¨- but how ?

This product is the result of a desire to put together a methodology for tackling the listening section, even if students feel like they are not understanding much of what is being said. Students are given an explanation of the question types and a graphic organizer to get into the habit of setting up each and every time they listen to an excerpt.

After 10+ years grading AP exams, every year students still report that the conversational task is the one with which they feel least confident.

Ensure your students´ success on the conversation task from the very beginning of the year by incorporating interpersonal speaking activities throughout your curriculum.

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Interpersonal Speaking Conversation Task Activities

Why this bundle?

True interpersonal speaking requires an authentic exchange of unknown information. These types of activities are however the ones most often lacking in traditional language textbooks and online programs.

This bundle provides a series of interpersonal synchronous and asynchronous partner and individual activities designed to help students integrate useful language for the exam into their holistic French proficiency. Teachers will need to incorporate grammar instruction as needed.

I recommend using these slides throughout the year, but they could also be used as a lead-up to the exam to build confidence.

Cultural Comparison Task Template & Guide

Why choose this guide ?

• One of the most common pitfalls of the Cultural Comparison task is the tendency to list cultural products rather than address cultural perspectives.

• While some students are aware of this, they often need a bit more guidance in HOW to synthesize their cultural knowledge efficiently and coherently. 

• Students feel less overwhelmed by the exam-day experience when they have practiced with a template

Do your students struggle with listening comprehension ?

Year after year this time of year, students come to me discouraged to have spent so much time studying the language without feeling confident with the listening excerpts of the exam.

The available test prep materials offer lots of wonderful QCM (multiple choice) practice, but leave many students stranded with the dilemma: ¨HOW do I become better at listening?¨

Why this resource?

This resource packet as a collection of listening strategies and practice exercises targeted at the high-frequency words often encountered in the listening sections of the exam.

• Page 1 offers students some guidance as to the role of listening skills on the exam.
• Page 2 is a graphic organizer & vocab list ( to be added to throughout the year) of high-frequency words for the AP listening sections. I find that students better retain the vocabulary when they can created a sort of ¨mental map΅placing the new words into category buckets
• Pages 3-4 are an opportunity for students to complete comprehensible input & Cloze listening exercises based on the actual passages from the 2017 exam, practicing hearing the new words in context
• Answer key

This resource can be used for both in-class guided audio exercises and/or take-home reinforcement for your students who really want to put in the time.