Listening Exam Technique and Dictation

Paper 1 measures how well you understand spoken French. Native speakers read the recording at a steady, clear pace, and everyone in the room hears the same audio. The paper splits into two sections that are marked in different ways.

Section	What it tests	Language you write in
A — comprehension	Understanding message, details and opinions	English
B — dictation	Transcribing short sentences	French

The mark split depends on your tier:

Feature	Foundation	Higher
Total marks	40	50
Section A	32	40
Section B (dictation)	8	10
Approx. timing	35 minutes	45 minutes

Section B is worth a fifth of the paper, so the dictation is not a minor add-on. It rewards students who can map French sounds to French spelling, which is why work on accents, nasal vowels, liaison and silent letters pays off directly here.

Before the recording begins you get about 5 minutes to read through the whole question paper, and at the very end you get 2 minutes to check your work. You may write at any point during the test, and no dictionary is allowed.

Each Section A item follows a fixed routine printed in the instructions:

• the question number is announced, then there is a pause to read the questions
• you hear the recording, and read the questions again
• you hear the recording a second time, then answer

So you always hear each Section A item twice. A bleep signals that the next question is about to start. Spend the reading time wisely: underline what each question actually asks, note whether it wants a past, present or future detail, and predict the French words you expect to hear. Walking into an item already knowing what to listen for is the single biggest gain available on this paper.

Section A uses a small, predictable set of formats. Recognising them in advance means you spend the recording listening, not decoding the layout. These types all appear in the specimen paper.

• Letter-matching to a grid — choose the option (A–F) that matches each voice message or advert, and write the letter in the box (for example, matching a message to birthday, hobbies or school).
• Aspects mentioned — write the letters of the two aspects a speaker actually mentions (for example, hotel food and hotel workers).
• Positive / negative opinions — write P, N or P+N for each aspect a speaker discusses.
• Comprehension in English — write a short answer that captures the key idea (for example, to reduce stress).
• Multiple choice — pick A, B or C to complete a statement.
• Sentence completion — finish a sentence in English (for example, In winter, the best weather is…).

Every answer in Section A is written in English, or as a letter or number. You are never asked to write French here.

The recording is full of small words that decide the answer. Train yourself to catch them.

• Time frames. hier (yesterday) and j'ai fait (I did) signal the past; maintenant and the present tense signal now; je vais and demain signal the future. Questions that ask about the future are lost the moment you hear a past-tense verb and stop listening.
• Opinion words. j'adore and génial are positive; je déteste, ennuyeux and je n'aime pas are negative. A single mais (but) can flip a statement to P+N.
• Negatives. Je ne mange pas beaucoup de viande means the person does not eat much meat — the opposite of what a rushed listener hears. Catching the ne … pas wrap is essential.
• Numbers and details. Prices, times and ages decide several marks; write them as figures the moment you hear them.

Beware distractors: the recording often says a word that appears in a wrong option. Hearing football does not mean the answer is about football; listen for what the speaker actually claims.

For English answers, write the key idea the mark scheme wants. On the coast, at the seaside and by the sea all earn the same mark, so you do not need perfect wording, just the correct meaning.

In the dictation you transcribe short spoken sentences into French. This is where the reformed spec rewards secure spelling and sound knowledge. The format is fixed:

• Foundation: 4 sentences, worth 8 marks.
• Higher: 5 sentences, worth 10 marks.
• Each sentence is played three times: first as a whole sentence, then in short sections, then as a whole sentence again.

A few words may come from beyond the prescribed vocabulary list; you decode them using your knowledge of French sounds. Use the three plays for different jobs: on the first hearing, grasp the overall meaning; on the sectioned hearing, write each chunk; on the final hearing, check that the French makes sense and that accents and agreements look right.

These are the genuine specimen dictation sentences, which show the level:

Tier	Sentence	Meaning
Foundation	J'aime bien le cinéma.	I quite like the cinema.
Foundation	Le lundi on mange du poulet.	On Mondays we eat chicken.
Higher	Un ami écoute avec attention.	A friend listens carefully.
Higher	Je serai pilote d'avion.	I will be an aeroplane pilot.

The dictation is judged on two separate criteria, considered across all your sentences as a whole.

• AO1 — communication of meaning (4 marks Foundation / 5 Higher): would a native speaker understand what you wrote?
• AO3 — transcription and grammatical accuracy (4 marks Foundation / 5 Higher): how correctly are the words spelled and formed?

Three rules from the mark scheme matter most. First, perfection is not required: a wrong accent or a spelling that keeps the sound correct (such as rève for rêve, or enuyeux for ennuyeux) is a minor error that need not block a top mark, though many small errors add up. Second, if you leave a gap, the examiner assumes any attempt would have been highly inaccurate, so blanks cost you — a rough attempt beats an empty line. Third, if your AO1 mark is 0, your AO3 mark is also 0, so meaning comes first.

Worked example. For Le lundi on mange du poulet ("On Mondays we eat chicken"), a student who writes Le lundi on mange du poulet scores full credit. A student who writes Le lundi on manger du poulet still communicates the meaning clearly (AO1 credit) even though the infinitive manger should be the finite mange. Fill every line with your best attempt, then use the final whole-sentence play to fix accents (lundi, not lundy) and endings.

Meaning first, then polish. Aim to write something sensible for every sentence before you worry about a single accent.

1. Wasting the reading time

The minutes before the recording are for predicting vocabulary and spotting whether a question wants a past, present or future detail. Students who sit idle lose their biggest advantage.

2. Answering Section A in French

Section A is answered in English. Writing a French phrase you half-heard wastes time and often misses the key idea the mark scheme rewards.

3. Falling for distractors

Hearing a word from a wrong option is not the answer. Match the speaker's actual claim, not the first familiar word you recognise.

4. Leaving dictation lines blank

An empty line is assumed to be highly inaccurate. Even a rough phonetic attempt can pick up communication credit, and it never scores less than a blank.

5. Ignoring accents and agreement in the dictation

Meaning comes first, but the final whole-sentence play is your chance to make the French look right: check gender and number agreement, and add accents where they change a word (a vs à, ou vs où).