French

French is the language of love and culture, associated with good food, good wine, and world class fashion. It is the working language in many international organisations, including the United Nations, the International Olympic Committee, and the International Red Cross.

French is spoken in more than 24 countries on five continents with 75 million native speakers and another 190 million secondary speakers. It is the most commonly taught second language after English, making it a real possibility that speaking French will come in handy wherever you travel.

If you are a native English speaker, one of the best reasons to learn French is to help you understand your own language. Although English is a Germanic language, French is the largest donor of foreign words in English.  Learning French will greatly increase the number of English words you know and your understanding of them.

Mrs Loren Juran
My name is Loren Juran and I have been teaching at Marsden for eleven years. After completing a first class honours degree in French and German at Otago University, I gained a scholarship to study a semester at Freiburg University in the south of Germany.

Later I spent a year as an ‘assistante’ helping to teach English in a high school in Salon de Provence, France.  It was this experience which inspired me to enter teaching.

I love opening our students’ eyes to a different language and way of life and most importantly encouraging understanding and tolerance of others. I believe learning another language is essential to global communication and therefore increased job opportunities.

French at Marsden
French is offered at Marsden from Year 7 to Year 13.

Students have the opportunity to practise and develop the four language skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing) through a variety of activities.

Music, films and newspaper articles are often used as the basis for lessons and we encourage our students to speak and listen to French as much as possible in and outside of the classroom.

Students enter the Alliance Française speaking competition in Wellington each August and some Year 11 students go to France each year on exchange with the Lycée Notre Dame de Bury, near Paris.