Preparing for the Test

Preparing for the Nipissing University French Proficiency Test

Candidates are advised to prepare well for the test. To improve oral fluency consider:

1. Listening to French radio broadcasts.

2. Watching television, movies, films or plays in French.

3. Speaking French with friends or family.

4. Joining Alliance Française or similar organizations, participating in immersion programs, travelling or studying in a francophone environment.

To improve written fluency consider:

1. Reviewing all tenses of verbs, spelling, use of specific tenses, the use of avoir and être, verbs conjugated with être, the passé composé and verbs that use specific prepositions.

2. Reading in French to review vocabulary.

3. Practicing a cloze test by photocopying a paragraph and whiting out about twenty words. Later, fill in the blanks and compare your answers with the original copy.

4. Purchasing or accessing multimedia programs such as Success in French or French Your Way (available at Nipissing University library-multimedia computers for Education- under Language Arts).

5. Purchasing Schaumm's Outlines French Grammar, Fourth Edition, Mary E. Crocker, 1999, ISBN: 0-07-013887-7

6. Reviewing grammar books that you already have.

7. Studying the 200 structures of the French language as outlined by the Ministry of Education in French, Core Programs 1980.