Hey
Sadly the spec has changed so its unlikely to be the same when I did it (I finished my A-levels this year
) but hopefully it still helps you
ASThe topics were quite straightforward, for example we studied television, music, fashion, family relationships etc.
There were 2 exams: the Listening, Reading and Writing exam and the Speaking exam. The Listening section is similar to that of GCSE just with longer passages. The Reading part is split into 2 sections, first there are questions similar to those at GCSE, but there is also a grammar section (also known as a cloze test). There were 10 sentences with gaps in and you would be asked to conjugate a verb, use the correct form of an adjective etc. The writing section required you to write an essay, if I remember correctly, there were 3 possible essay questions on 3 different subjects (so you could have an essay on advertising, one on health and the other on cinema). You chose which one you wanted to write and answered it
The Speaking exam is very different to how you do it at GCSE. It was split into 3 parts. The first part is a stimulus card (you get a choice of 2) which is about a specific topic and asks you several questions which you are expected to prepare (for this part of the speaking exam, you get 20 mins to make notes on these questions) and then your examiner would ask you the questions and you can look at your notes to answer them, if you wish. The 2nd part is the same as at GCSE, you can prepare questions on a topic that you can choose. The 3rd part was the difficult part which was a discussion about 2 more topics, you cant prepare for this bit and you have to think of responses of the top of your head and keep a conversation going.
A2The topics here are a lot more challenging and complex but more interesting
The first topics was about pollution, energy and protecting the planet. The 2nd topic was about multiculturalism, racism, integration and the 3rd topic was about contemporary social problems which foucsed on poverty, crime and science/technology.
You also have to learn 2 cultural topics (e.g. a historical period, an area of France/French speaking area, literature, film, art etc.) Where I studied, we did a French director (Matthieu Kassovitz and we focused on the film La Haine) and a French poetry (Prevert)
Again 2 exams, the same as at AS. The Listening section is the same as AS and GCSE but you're only asked about core content (not the cultural topics). The Reading section is again in 2 parts but the 2nd part is translation instead of grammar. The translation section itself is split in 2, there is a paragraph that you translate from French to English and then 5 sentences to translate from English to French. Again, this was on core content (not cultural topics). The Writing section again was an essay but about one of the cultural topics you studied. For each cultural topic, you get a choice of 2 questions and you only answer 1 question (and only 1 cultural topic, in my case, I opted for the film instead of peotry)
The Speaking exam consisted of 2 sections. The first bit was a stimulus card but was a debate. You were presented with an argument (core content only) which could be about racism, nuclear energy, death penalty) and there would be 2 contrasting opinions on the card, you picked which one you want to support and came up with aarguments to back up this opinion. The examiner would counter argue your points. The 2nd part looked at both your cultural topics where you would be asked questions about them and you answer back (like the last part of AS speaking)
Sorry that this is long but this should help. I know that the new spec will probs be deifferent but some parts of this may stay the same
And to asnwer your other question, I think its definitely worth taking French A-level, it was by far my favourite A-level and I just found it really interesting especially at A2 where you got to discuss controversial subjects and learn a language at the same time. The speaking parts I did find difficult but that was a confidence issue rather than a French one and I have deifnitely been boosted in confidence by taking A-level French. In fact I'm going to be continuing French at uni along with Beginners Spanish and Translation
Hope this helps, and if you have any more questions, please feel free to ask me, I'm very happy to help