AP/FR 0120 is designed for students who have not studied French, or who do not have sufficient French to be admitted to an Advanced Beginner class.

Students are encouraged to develop their oral and written skills systematically through the use of dialogues, role-playing, and conversations in pairs, small groups or in class with the instructor.

Pronunciation is practiced through repetition exercises in class, online or at home via the audio files found on eClass.

Oral comprehension is practiced through dictation and listening exercises that will sensitize students to the sounds, rhythm and delivery of standard French, auditory discrimination exercises and global comprehension of a message.

Basic vocabulary and grammatical structures of the language are introduced without delay, allowing students to express themselves at an early stage.

Students will be given various written exercises and will practice writing simple sentences, paragraphs and very short compositions. Grammatical and lexical errors will be corrected.

Reading comprehension will be developed through the reading of short passages on a culture theme and the reading of dialogues.

The more the course progresses, the more French will be used (teaching and activities).

A Vous! A1 Méthode de français. Presses Universitaires de Grenoble, 2021. ISBN:  9782278095544

Oral Work: 15%

Written work: 45%

Listening: 20%

Ongoing assessment: 20%

The course is offered 8 hours per week divided into 2 four-hour blocks. This course offers to learning models: online which will use eClass as a course platform to share documents and class work with the students.

Attendance to online sessions and participation are the backbone of any performance in learning a new language.

Regular exposure to another language inevitably enhances a student's ability to understand and speak the language.  Role-playing and active participation are strongly encouraged.  It is important that students realize they should not be afraid of speaking and making mistakes. It is part of the learning process.

1. Overall learning goals

AP/FR 0120 aims at enabling students to read and write simple French, understand and follow everyday conversations and take part in oral exchanges in French within the limits of the grammar structures and vocabulary covered in the course.  Upon successful completion of the course, students will have acquired listening, speaking, reading and writing skills necessary to take French courses at the intermediate level.

1. Specific learning objectives

More specifically, at the end of the course the student should be able to:

Depth and breadth of knowledge

• demonstrate awareness of basic cultural facts;
• know the basic sound system of French;
• know the basic lexical categories and morphological and syntactic patterns of the French language (e.g. gender, verb conjugation patterns, word order in simple sentences); recognizes differences with English;
• be aware of the usefulness of cognates for understanding meaning;

Knowledge of methodologies

• do oral phonetic practice (discrimination through binary pairs, imitation of models, variations on a dialogue, reading aloud) alone and in pairs;
• work independently (paper and online) using an answer key (corrigé) to consolidate grammatical knowledge and practice verb forms and other morphological and syntactic structures;

Application of knowledge

• use basic vocabulary and correct verb forms to introduce oneself, describe daily routines, indicate likes and dislikes, ask questions relating to people and one’s surroundings;
• comprehend basic information presented orally or in written form;
• create and edit short paragraphs (50-100 words) in basic correct French to describe a person or place, to provide directions;

Communication skills

• participate in a basic conversation in French relating to daily life situations and routines, demonstrating an ability to understand others and to make oneself understood in a rudimentary way;
• ask questions to clarify what has been misunderstood;
• use correctly the present tense of regular verbs and of common irregular verbs; begins to use the past tenses of regular and common irregular verbs;
• read information presented and responds in writing, e.g. by answering a short survey about oneself, interests and routines, by writing a short answer;

Awareness of limits of knowledge

• be aware of the limits of basic knowledge for self-expression;
• be aware of own limits in understanding oral French by native speakers at normal speed but may begin to catch some expressions and notice intonation patterns;

Autonomy and Professional capacity

• present oneself and own interests in basic French;
• give an assessment of own knowledge of French as very basic; collaborate with peers for language practice.