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I've had Dr.Grodek so I'm speaking in regards to her class, not sure if the other profs do the same thing:
You should be fine with French 1A06 if you've taken grade 12. The course does not have much speaking. I remember we had an oral presentation at the beginning of the year for about 5 mins with a small one page writeup just so our prof could see where we were individually. I'm not sure if they actually marked it. The most oral you will be doing is in tutorial but they're usually just asking for vocabulary definitions, you don't actually have conversations in tutorial. People who have different backgrounds in French get marked differently. They go a bit easier on you if you suck simply because they know that it's not fair as some people in that class have only taken core grade 12 french and are taking the course in their fourth year so they've forgotten everything, while others grew up in France or have French speaking parents. There will be a mix of students, but there's nothing to worry about. Just focus on improving yourself.
Reading: You're probably gonna be reading some difficult books but that's where your prof comes in to explain everything.
Writing: If you can write an essay in English, you can write an essay in French. You have all the necessary tenses, idioms, and expressions if you've taken grade 12 french. Your essay mark mostly comes from your ideas and only a small part of it is grammar. Use google translate one word at a time for nouns and verb definitions and use an online conjugator to make sure your verbs are correctly conjugated with the subject. But you will not have this luxury on the exams so make sure you actually have a good vocabulary/expression set to use on the go.
Listening: The most important part of this course. The course is taught in all French. The prof and the TAs speak French at all times. During your first week, if you're having trouble following along with what your prof is saying, you need to drop out. They will usually speak at a pace that suits the entire class. So speak up if you want your prof to talk slower, otherwise you'll need to drop.
Warning on Grodek: Very good prof but she has an attendance rule where if you miss more than 3 classes (for the entire year) then she lowers your final mark in April by 5% (yes they take attendance every class), so if you're in the 80s or below, a 5% drop can be more than one grade point on the 12 scale. Her philosophy on this is that this is a language course and the only way to improve is to constantly speak by showing up to class. I kind of disagreed with this because I don't speak everyday when I go to class.
Quizzes in the class are all grammar.
Midterms in the class are all grammar.
Exams have grammar and usually 2 essay questions. And in case you didn't know, because this is a full year course, you will have 2 midterms (1 per semester), and 2 exams (1 per semester).
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