Beginning French Conversation

Gaining practical fluency in a foreign language is one way in which to expand insight into another culture. As a student in linguistic immersion you have a unique opportunity to engage locals, even at the beginning levels as a way to increase both your bi-cultural and your intercultural competence. However, as a beginner, you may wonder how you can go about engaging locals despite your lack of adequate conversation skills. This course will begin with an emphasis on phonetic control and aural comprehension with the objective of training you to distinguish and reproduce sounds, words and structures in immersion.

Designed for students beginning university-level French language instruction, this course offers students a structured learning environment for a directed study of French phonetics and the acquisition of beginner-level, action-based conversations appropriate to the immersion experience, such as: ordering at the market, making a medical appointment, reserving a train ticket and booking a hotel to name a few. Over the course of the semester, you will hone your beginning-level competences in "oral communication" through an action-based, intercultural approach that will also promote the favorable development of your personality and sense of identity in response to the enriching experience of otherness in both language and culture.

Your goal, therefore, is to systematize competencies related to listening and oral production so as to effectively achieve acts of speech such as "establishing basic social contact", "producing simple, mainly isolated phrases about people and places", and "asking and answering simple questions". While vocabulary and grammatical competencies are not listed in the objectives for this course, mastering them is a step necessary to making progress in this course.

This course reinforces those spoken and listening competencies normally acquired in the A1 level of the Common European Framework for Languages (CEFRL). As such, it is also appropriate for the student with greater writing and reading competence in French but who lacks equal proficiency in listening and speaking.

Conducted entirely in French, this class requires daily preparation as well as a high level of personal engagement during class meetings. And while the instructor does not expect you to understand every word said in class, you should listen/look for patterns and contextual clues in order to gain a global understanding of the situation and sense behind it. Learning to derive global meanings from speech and text that you may not entirely understand is a powerful tool that will hone your ability to understand your environment as you navigate your way through French-speaking cultures, both literally and figuratively.