Study Abroad Home > Study Abroad in Paris > Course Descriptions > Elementary French and Phonetics I

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Ten hours per week are devoted to grammar, verb conjugation, spelling, vocabulary, approach to literary texts, written and spoken expression.  The texts used in this course have been developed by the faculty at the Sorbonne and all reading materials are focused on French culture.  This is the same for conversation topics as well.  There will be regular evaluation of work and progress, as well as a final exam (written and oral). This class is suitable for students with little or no previous French instruction.

This class is aimed at non-French-speaking young adults and adults who had never taken FLE classes and who wish to acquire basis in French language.

Goals

The course aims at enabling the learners to acquire a minimal level of French communication. They learn how to introduce themselves, to situate themselves in space, to ask questions, to ask/inquire or express a point of view, to compare and tell simple stories.

Teaching Approach

Communicative approach centered on the learning of the language structures. Grammar is favored to develop the four skills.

Overall Assessment

• Continuous assessment 20%: tests in class (grammar questions, dictations, written and oral exercises, written and oral comprehension)
• Final exam 80%:

1. Written part 40%: grammar questions (20%), written comprehension (10%), written expression (10%)
2. Oral part 40%: description of an image (10%), comprehension questions on an oral document (10%) and a phonetic grade (continuous assessment 20%)

Teaching Aids

• Festival 1 (book), Exercise book Festival 1 and a CD from the book, various documents (oral, visual and written)
• Exercise book and personal exercises
• Phonetic improvement elaborated by applied linguistics (linguistique appliqué) teachers

Communicative Goals (oral and writing skills)

• To know each other, to greet, to introduce oneself
• To inform, to inform oneself, situate a spot, explain an itinerary
• To announce, to count/tell an event 
• To invite someone, to answer (to RSVP) an invitation
• To offer/propose, to accept, to thank
• To apologize, to justify
• To talk about quality, a price
• To ask/ to give permission to do something
• To ordain and forbid
• To situate oneself in time 
• To describe a person in simple terms (physical aspects, temper)
• To describe a thing (size, color, material…)
• To give one's opinion about someone, something
• To complain
• To understand a simple text, informative and explanatory text, a short tale
• To understand everyday documents (ads, flyers, menus, timetables, etc…)

Activities linked to those targets:

Oral

• Spontaneous and directed exercises: simple information exchange linked to everyday life, the narration of story, the description of an image, a person, an event, activities, experiences, short presentation on a familiar subject, commentary on picture or an image.
• Interaction: role play (group of 2 or 4 students): ask for information, simple transactions, expressing an opinion, etc.
• Comprehension: work on read or listened documents (semi-authentic audio document, sonorous/tone texts, songs and documents extracted from the textbook)
• Dictations

Oral Assessment

• Exercises and interaction: participation (understanding the instructions, global skills, appropriate vocabulary, phonetic correction)
• Comprehension: checking on the global comprehension or a detailed sonorous document according to lexical targets (discovery, recognizing, hypothesis on the meaning) and linguistics (structural spotting)

Written

• Exercises: written exercises (appropriation of grammatical points and reusing of the thematic vocabulary)
• Blank exercises, reusing exercises, questions- answers, multiple choices exercises, substitution exercises (singular/plural, masculine/feminine, present tense/passé compose, etc.), creativity exercises, free exercises
• Writing essays in group or individual essays of short texts on a theme (semi-guided exercise)
• Images to describe or comment
• Dictation

Comprehension

• Read documents in group or individually with semantic and syntactic spotting clues in order to produce hypothesis on their meanings
• Exercises of written comprehension from the textbook (Multiple questions and answers to fully write) and various documents

Written Assessment

• Exercises: checking of the comprehension of the instructions, global skills, level structures, vocabulary
• Comprehension: checking of the comprehension (global and/or detailed) and the interpretation of the document's information

Grammar

• Word order in a sentence: to be, to be called/to name (s'appeler)
• Personal pronouns (je/vous – vous singular form/ vous plural form- il/elle – tu/vous- ils/ells- nous/on)
• The three articles: definite, indefinite and partitive, contracted article and the article "zero" (the non-article)
• Il y a (there is)
• C'est un (It's a)/ Il est (he is)
• Prepositions à and de
• Interrogation with, où, quel, est-ce que, qu'est-ce que c'est, qui, quand
• The comparaison : comme + noun
• The characterization
• The possessive adjective
• The demonstrative adjective
• The adjective 'tout'
• The superlative
• The adverb
• The pronoun COD (le, la, les) and COI
• The verbs : to have, to be, to live, to be called, to go, to come, to want, can, to have to, to take, to go down, to do
• Tenses and modes: present, imperative, future, passé compose, imperfect + passé recent et future proche
• Reflexive verbs
• The expression of hypothesis and condition (present/future)
• The negative form (ne…pas, ne…plus, pas de, de…rien, ne … personne,ne … jamais, moi aussi/ moi non plus) in simple tenses and passé compose
• Verb + infinitive

Vocabulary

• Nationalities
• Greetings
• Class words
• Days of the week, month, seasons
• Weather Forecast
• Numbers
• Family
• Clothes
• Colors
• Transportation
• Politeness expressions
• Trade/ Business
• Food
• Activities and location of everyday life
• House, types of housing
• Leisure
• Sport (basis vocabulary)
• Personal tastes
• Steps of life

Phonetics

A specific phonetic test is set up for all the students in order to place them into the appropriate training class. We place them into a group (cf. Phonetic test and syllabus)

Content

Improvement: discovery of the French phonetic system, perception of prosodic features, sounds/spelling connections

Activities

• In class: reviewing of exercises from the lesson then written exercises
• In the lab: recording of the lesson explained during the class, repeating of the pattern sentences, creation of instructions, reading

Phonetics Assessment

Continuous assessment 20%: repeating tests, creation, perception, discrimination, reading

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