There were some furrowed brows while the French tape was playing but after that students settled down to complete a "grand" French exam. Although parts of the tape were difficult to understand, Junior Cert French was given the thumbs-up sign for both levels yesterday by teachers. Mr Sean Higgins, a former ASTI president and a teacher at St Mary's Diocesan School in Drogheda, Co Louth, said that students sitting the higher-level French paper were "generally happy" but there were problems with the aural section. Mr Higgins mentioned two specific complaints that students had with regard to this "listening comprehension" part of the exam.

He pinpointed the accent of the speaker in the second item in section E here as being "difficult to decipher" and also being "spoken very quickly". The piece concerned an accident and students, who were asked how many people were killed and injured, have to "retrieve the information", he explained. "The accent and the speed caused problems," he said. Also he listed section D on the tape as being "very blurred and they found it difficult to work out what was being said. There was a consensus amongst the students on this. "Apart from that the paper was pupil-friendly," he said.

The ordinary level, "seems to be on par", he said, but again he pointed to the same taped pieces, which ordinary level students also hear, as being problematic. These difficulties are "magnified" for students doing the ordinary level, he said. "This would make these parts very difficult," he said.

"Predictable" was how Ms Mary Costelloe, a TUI subject representative and a teacher at St Patrick's Comprehensive School in Shannon, Co Clare, described the higher-level French exam. The layout and the type of questions were all expected and "would have come up before", she said. Students were asked to write a postcard rather than a message and they would have liked this, she said, because "it's easier".

She found the ordinary-level to be "difficult enough" in the writing section compared to higher level. However students had a choice in this section "but it's still a bit more difficult", she said. The tape was "fine", said Ms Margaret Le Lu, ASTI subject convenor and a teacher at Old Bawn Community School in Tallaght, Dublin. But she said that section C in this part of the exam was too long for those students who were doing ordinary level. "It's too long when they have to sift through so much material," she said.

She also found fault with some of the reproduced texts, the quality of the type, the style of writing and the small print which may have been difficult to read for those students with poor eye-sight. For example, the joined-up writing in question 2 of section 2 and also the white on black text in question 13 of the same section gave her cause for concern. Otherwise the paper was "fine", she said.

Higher-level students would have had the same problems, she said. But on the whole this paper also was "fine".