FREN 100: Elementary French
Prerequisites: None
Credit Hours: (4) Four hours lecture and language practice
An introduction to French; acquisition of a basic active command of French; emphasis on listening comprehension, speaking, reading and writing. This course has been approved for credit in the Foreign Languages Area of the Core Curriculum.
Detailed Description of Content of Course
Situations covered include: greetings, names, descriptions, clothing, colors, numbers, parts of the body, the classroom, personal qualities, the family, weather and seasons, nationality; leisure, educational system, daily routine; time and dates, ownership, presents, questions of taste, pleasure; talent and plans, duties, health, moods; narrating events and experiences, birthdays and anniversaries; professions and trades, and cooking.
Cultural sections focus on: growing up in French- speaking countries ( France, Belgium, Switzerland, countries of East, West and Equatorial Africa, Southern Islands, Tahiti, Lebanon, Eastern Canada and selected parts of the United States.) Geography, magazines and newspapers, working and shopping hours, ID biographies of famous Frenchmen and women, the flea market, the postal system, French exports, city profiles, holidays, and other customs.
Grammatical structures include: gender, number, case; personal pronouns, possessive adjectives, articles, negation; basic verbs including stem vowel changing verbs and modals in the present and perfect tenses; separable prefixes, imperative forms; prepositions of time, prepositions and word order.
Detailed Description of Conduct of Course
Class instruction targets communication practice utilizing the situations, intentions, vocabulary, culture, and grammar introduced in a given chapter. Other activities include: grammar and vocabulary explanations, pronunciation practice, listening comprehension exercises, writing, and grammatical drills. Class is conducted primarily in the target language, while specific grammatical instruction is still being conducted in English.
Goals and Objectives of the Course
Speaking and listening goals (standardized ACTFL proficiency criteria): Students will be able to communicate minimally with learned material. Students will produce oral speech using isolated words and learned phrases with predictable areas of need. Students will only be minimally able to recombine learned oral elements. Students will be able to pronounce most French sounds accurately (if not in rapid speech). As regards listening skills, students will be able to recognize learned material and isolated words and phrases when strongly supported by context. Students will be able to comprehend some words and phrases from simple questions, statements, high-frequency commands, and courtesy formulae about topics that refer to basic personal information or the immediate physical setting.
Reading and writing goals (standardized ACTFL proficiency criteria): Students will be able to identify learned material without assistance and to understand some new material when strongly supported by cognates, context, or dictionary assistance. In writing, students will be able to produce isolated words and phrases from learned material and will be able to analyze and produce the most basic grammar in graded sentences.
Students will achieve a degree of competence in a foreign language and culture.
Students will be able to:
a. demonstrate language skills appropriate to the level of study
b. analyze similarities and differences between their own and the target cultures
c. explain contemporary international issues from the perspectives of their own and the target cultures
Assessment Measures
Speaking progress is evaluated in class and in conversational practice. Written homework assignments provide a basis for the evaluation of writing progress. listening and reading comprehension and grammatical accuracy are tested in hourly exams, chapter tests, and on the final exam. In most of these testing situations, students will also either demonstrate or further expand (in the case of new linguistic excerpts containing new cultural topics) their familiarity with cultural topics and cm-rent global issues. Students’ success in using French will therefore demonstrate not only their linguistic abilities but also their cultural competence to anticipate, identify, and to simulate the use of different cultural perceptions and behaviors through the new language.
Other Course Information
To supplement linguistic and cultural encounters in class, students are expected to participate in some extracurricular activities such as conversation with native speakers, watching French movies, and inquiring about French-speaking cultures by means of the multitude of media available as informational resources. French 100 is for beginners and students who have had no more than one year of French in high school.
Approval and Subsequent Reviews
Date Action Reviewed by
Sept. 2005 Reviewed Philip Sweet