THE first comprehension on the Leaving Cert higher-level French paper provoked a stream of complaints from teachers and students. I was shocked by the opening question on the written paper," said Mr Sean Higgins, past president of the ASTI. "The students found it very obscure and very, very demanding. It was very off-putting, as they went on the rest of the paper".
The appearance of the pronom objet indirect in question 1, part 2, and verbe pronominal au passe compose in question 2, part 5 (i), instead of using the straight-forward terms, was the kind of linguistic game students did not need, he added. "We were given to believe, at a French teachers' conference, that this type of question would not occur," said Mr Higgins, who teaches French in St Mary's Diocesan School, Drogheda, Co Louth. "This is the first exam of the new course and this degree of difficulty is a very bad omen.
The piece itself, an extract from Le Coq de Bruyere by Michel Tournier, was unsuited to Leaving Cert level, he added. The vocabulary included words such as le bahut, which students would not have met before. "I find this very objectionable. . . whoever set the paper up did not allow for the fact that students are under pressure. It would be fine if they had oceans of time and a dictionary beside them."
Mr Higgins also criticised the numbering of questions which he described as "unnecessarily complicated". A number of students and parents also contacted Exam Times to voice their concerns about the degree of difficulty in the higher-level paper. One teacher described the paper as erratic, sly, petty and silly in parts. She said she was disappointed and disgusted with the "catastrophe".
On the positive side, Mr Higgins said that the aural was very manageable and students liked some of the questions towards the end of the written paper. There were no complaints about the ordinary level paper, he added.
Ms Dellemar Keane, TUI subject representative and a teacher in The Bush School, Riverstown, Dundalk, Co Louth, said that higher-level students liked the paper but all of them found the first comprehension on the written paper difficult to understand. Most students were happy with the choice in the written production section but she noted that the compulsory question was narrow in scope.
General satisfaction was expressed with the listening comprehension. said Ms Keane, but some higher-level students felt that the time given to write the answers to section 5 was too short. In both ordinary and higher-level papers, easier points of grammar could have been given, she said, as very few students are familiar with the terms in English grammar.
AT ordinary level, she said that the written comprehensions 1 and 2 were manageable but question 3(i) needed very careful reading as the answers were spread throughout the text. Answering the questions on comprehension 4 possibly took longer than necessary, she said, with the exception of question (viii), as the paragraph which contained the answer was not flagged. However, the level of French was appropriate.
There was lots of choice in the written section, said Ms Keane, and practically all students should have found something to suit them.