Reaction to 2026 Leaving Certificate French (Higher Level) by Corinne Gavenda, French teacher at The Institute of Education.
- A brilliantly topical paper that reflects the lives of young people.
- Familiar topics with nuanced questions will allow everyone to demonstrate their command of the language.
Opening the paper students will be extremely happy with two very approachable comprehensions. The first was on young people travelling by plane and the environment, with all the vocabulary and questions being accessible. Even the grammar question was particularly nice and so students who had practiced the past papers would have had no difficulty with it. The second text is normally tougher, but students will be pleasantly surprised by this excerpt on renting a room in an apartment. The topic is relevant and the vocabulary familiar, so students will be able to move through the text confidently. Even terms like “empêche” (prevent) which might throw some will be familiar from past papers.
The productive writing compulsory question has three options, but most will avoid the narrative choice and go for either of the others. The first was a lovely open-ended prompt on “what type of holiday do you prefer?”. This let students draw upon some ideas they would have prepared for their orals and so everyone will have something to say here. Students looking to distinguish themselves will have needed to elevate their material to a discursive rather than anecdotal approach. You couldn’t just write about what you did previously and get full marks. The second question on “how do we deal with the accommodation crisis?” is another discursive take on a topical issue. The organised student will have been able to lay out a clear structure to their argument here and so leave the exam feeling assured they didn’t drift off course.
The final section gives five options from which students need only select one. Those relying on the diary will find a tough question on their first driving lesson. This was a really specific topic and had little overlap with material that many will have prepared elsewhere, so some will struggle to fill up the page. Similarly the email option was also very language specific. This task was centred on the theme of treatment of people with disabilities with access to public transport. The theme itself is topical but in an exam setting some students might find the amount of detail demanded daunting. On the contrary, the final three topics were brilliantly current and familiar to everyone. Q4. on the scandal of fast fashion will have been discussed in classrooms across the country. Q5. was on A.I., something that is constantly in the headlines and many will have anticipated. However the question had a nuance that will help boost the stronger student. It wasn’t just a personal take on the pros and cons of A.I., it was assessing the validity of fears surrounding A.I.. The final question on the value of learning a foreign language was a perfect topic for them. It hasn’t appeared on the paper since 2019 so some might have hoped to see it return but regardless of predictions, the question reflects an important value of the French exam: each paper reflects the world in which it is written, not the exams that have preceded it. Students who were socially and culturally alert while studying their vocabulary will have found a paper that resonated with them in a very rewarding way.
After a short break, the aural began. It started with a very accessible Section A on hiking, meeting friends, feeding cats. But then it was followed by two challenging sections. In Section B the word “patron” meaning “boss” and not “customer” in this context will throw students off. In Section C we have two people speaking but only one with the correct information so students will have needed to be patient and listening carefully to the whole exchange. Section D was on the French Men’s Football team and was very accessible in its vocabulary. But the exam finishes with the typically more challenging Section E. The answers hinged on a single word of vocabulary for each part. For instance, they needed to hear “les oiseaux” for “birds” and “pieces d’or” for “gold coins” after only two plays of the audio.