FREN201

Elementary French I

A course for non-specialists based on the A2 level of the European Framework and focused on the understanding and production of detached sentences and expressions related to everyday life (such as personal and familial information and one’s immediate environment including transportation, recreation, and shopping).

French grammatical structures such as past tenses, pronouns, negation, comparison, and the future tense will be studied with an interactive approach, stressing communicative competences.

This practice will include:

• communicating in the context of the practical exchange of information on familiar topics;
• understanding spoken messages;
• reading short texts such as personal letters, ads, schedules, short articles;
• expressing practical ideas and opinions both orally and in writing.
• learning about diverse cultures of the French-speaking world.

Three hours a week will be devoted to providing students with communicational tools that help to deal with everyday situations that one might encounter in a French speaking region.

At the end of the semester, students will be able to understand sentences and frequently used expressions related to areas of most immediate relevance, to communicate about routine tasks requiring direct exchange of information on familiar matters, to describe aspects of their background, immediate environment and ordinary needs.

Lectures and class discussions are mostly conducted in French. If you are unsure whether this is the appropriate level of French course for you, click here.