French 1

PREREQUISITES

PREVIOUS KNOWLEDGE

SUBJECTS TO BE TAKEN SIMULTANEOUSLY

SUBJECT DESCRIPTION

Module 1 of this course includes a dossier analyzing daily communicative situations in a professional context. The textbook employed is Objectif Diplomatie 1 -  Le français des relations internationales et européennes, A1 / A2, (Hachette, 2006).

COMPETENCES

The competences attained in module French 1 will be evaluated following the evaluation criteria given below in the corresponding section. 

 1. Regarding communicative skills in French:

    1.1 To be able to communicate orally in simple and ordinary communicative situations (face to face, by phone) in daily and professional life.

  2. Regarding oral and written comprehension:

2.1 To be able to globally understand texts, written or audio-visual, short and standard, related to daily and professional life.

3. Regarding written production:

3.1 To be able to write simple and standard texts (emails, forums, blogs) or complete standard forms in the context of everyday and professional life.

 LEARNING OUTCOMES

Student will be able to communicate in writing and orally in a second foreign language (French) at an intermediate level. (Result of level 1: level A1.1 of the Common European Framework.)

CONTENTS

               Communication

Introducing yourself

Introducing and describing (places, people)

Expressing opinions and interests (I prefer, I hate, etc. + definite article)

On the phone (Allô ! Ne quittez pas...)

Talking about your plans, confirming dates.

Grammar

Present

Imperative

Recent past (venir de + Inf)

Near future (aller + Inf)

Adjectives for nationalities, professions

Personal pronouns: Moi, toi, lui/elle, eux/elles.

Prepositions of place (country: au, en, aux; city: à)

Possessive pronouns (mon, ma, mes)

Demonstrative adjectives (ce, cet, cette, ces)

Negation (ne...pas)

Questions (3: est-ce que?, direct, subject, inversion)

C'est / Il est

Contracted articles: au, aux, à la, à l'; du, de la, de l', des

Intention: pour + infinitive, parce que + verb

Vocabulary

Countries, languages (en Espagne, au Portugal)

Family

Numbers

Describing characters and physical attributes (looks like, hight, hair...)

Professions (jobs)

Months, days, periods during the day, time

Pronunciation

Alphabet

Silent letters

e/è/é

Nasal sounds

Verb endings

Intercultural

Greetings (La bise, Karambolage)

Using tu and vous

Stereotypes

Ways of working

Schedules

Being invited to a French person's house (drinks, gifts, punctuality, good table manners)

L'Auberge espagnole (filmfra.com)

Stereotypes, describing personalities and physical attributes, nationalities, the city

METHODOLOGY

              Students work on a text (audio, video or written document) representing communicative situations about daily or profeessional life. They practice French sounds, grammatical structures, different ways of speaking or the lexicon employed in this document. The issues addressed are applied in practice by recreating a brief scenario and completing a task.

This methodology involves the following types of activities:

a. Classroom instruction.

b. Individual exercises in class

c. Individual exercises outside of class

d. Reading of texts

e. Listening to audio documents, viewing of videos

f. Group activities in class

g. Group activities outside of class

h. Role-playing games, simulations

i. Participating in class activities

j. Preparing the final exam

k. Final exam

EVALUATION

A. Written exam

B. Oral exam

C. Evaluation of homework

D. Evaluation of oral intervention (presentations, debates, ...)

E. Evaluation of participation in class activities

Final exam 50%:           

Oral comprehension: 20%

Written comprehension: 10 %

Oral expression (and pronunciation): 20%

Linguistic structures: 30%

Written expression: 20%

Continuous evaluation 50%:                 

Role-playing games, simulations

Written exercises, including homework and mid-term tests

Pronunciation

Participation  

Participation in 85% of regular class sessions is a prerequisite for taking the final exam. Students must have taken the five tests of the final exam in order to pass to the higher level.

Those students who have not attended 85% of the class sessions and/or have not taken the five tests of the final exam will have to repeat the level.

To pass level 1, students must pass at least 3 out of 5 tests of the final exam.

At the end of the 2nd semester, students who have taken the exam but have failed the course may take the resit exam in June. The final grade for students taking this exam will take into account the grade obtained for continuous evaluation (50%) and the grade on the resit exam (50%).

Students who are not able to take the exam at the end of the 2nd semester cannot take the resit exam and must register the following semester for the same level.

CRITERIA OF EVALUATION OF RESULTS

 At the end of Français 1:

 Objective 1: Regarding French communicative capacities (B,C,D,E):

• The student is able to produce simple, isolated expressions about people and things.

• The student is able to describe himself, as well as what he does, where he lives or his studies.

• The student is able to ask and answer simple questions, respond to simple statements or produce statements in the area of immediate needs or on very familiar topics.

• The student is able to easily cope with numbers, quantities, money and hours.

• The student has a limited control of syntactic structures and simple grammatical forms from a memorized repertoire.

• The student has a limited selection of simple expressions to give information about himself or his regular needs.

• The student is able to state his address, nationality and other personal information of this sort.

Objective 2: Regarding oral and written comprehension (A,B,C,E):

• The student is able to understand an intervention if it is articulated slowly and with long pauses allowing him to assimilate its meaning.

• The student is able to understand very short and simple texts, from sentence to sentence, and to identify nouns, familiar words and very basic expressions, rereading the texts if necessary. 

Objective 3: Regarding written production (A,C):

• The student is able to write isolated simple expressions and sentences.

• The student is able to request or to transmit in writing detailed personal information.

BASIC BIBLIOGRAPHY

Riehl, L., Soignet, M., Amiot, MH, Objectif Diplomatie 1, Le Français des relations européennes et internationales, A1/A2, (with CD included), Hachette-Livre, 2006.

BIBLIOGRAPHY AND MATTER COMPLEMENTARY

-  Gregoire, M., Thievenaz, O., Grammaire progressive du français 600 exercices – Niveau intermédiaire, CLE International, 2003

-     Rey-Debove, j (dir.), Dictionnaire du français langue étrangère, CLE International, 1999

-     Learn French with TV5Monde http://www.tv5.org/TV5Site/enseigner-apprendre-francais/accueil_apprendre.php

-     RFI Langue française http://www.rfi.fr/lfes/statiques/accueil.asp

-     Web productions on artetv http://www.arte.tv/sites/webdocs/?lang=fr

 

-     Reports and testimonials on arteradio http://www.arteradio.com/

On-line French exercises

http://www.lepointdufle.net/ressources_fle/exercices_de_francais.htm#.Ubs54diISVY