Advice from one student to another:

Give yourself plenty of time to learn your piece.
For writing, it might help to record yourself speaking the piece and then listening to it while you sleep or while you are doing other, simple, tasks. This can embed the text into your memory, so as you are writing it, you can say it silently inside your head to help you remember.
For your speaking, try practicing with a friend or a parent/guardian who can speak reasonably good French. Get them to ask a series of simple questions that you can build on, but make them related to the topic. E.G. Is the environment important to you? Where do you live? what subjects do you take at school? The more you do this, the more comfortable you can get with speaking a different language in front of people you know.
ALWAYS make a prompt sheet. ALWAYS! If you don't, then if your mind goes blank, you will not have anything to back you up. Try writing your prompt in blue ink - your teacher will blank out any extra or not allowed words with a black marker, and you can see blue ink through the black! (I found that out when I wrote a German prompt in my normal blue pen, and I had forgotten to un-conjugate some of the words, so she covered them with thick black lines, but I could see the blue through it! I didn't tell her, obviously.)
It doesn't matter if your prompt hasn't got the word you need, because you can go from the word before and try again - it doesn't matter so much in the writing exam, but you might want to learn a few helpful phrases like That's a good question! or Err or Umm or Could you repeat the question, please? or Well... to cover up that you are trying to remember your next sentence!

Advice from a student to a teacher:

	Creado por Emma Pugh hace casi 8 años

This is a selection of notes, tips, tricks and handy advice from a student struggling with French GCSE Speaking and Writing Assessments. For students and teachers alike.