WORLD LANGUAGE COURSES WORLD LANGUAGE COURSES

French 1A (7-8)

This course introduces students to the French language and is designed for students with little to no prior exposure to French. Our curriculum provides an opportunity for students to learn French by listening, speaking, reading, and writing, and it exposes them to the traditions, customs, and culture of French speaking countries. The course is conducted primarily in French and provides a solid foundation at the novice-low level. Students at this level can communicate on some very familiar topics using single words and phrases that they have practiced and memorized. Students develop basic receptive and productive skills through practice of useful structures, forms, and vocabulary related to school, family, friends, pastimes, places around town, and dining at a restaurant. At the end of French IA, students use the present and near future tenses to express basic needs, ask and answer questions, and discuss everyday situations.

French 1B (7-8)

Prerequisite: French 1A or departmental approval.

This course continues to build a solid foundation of the French language. Students further develop their receptive and productive skills through a wide array of linguistic and communicative tasks in a more creative way. Conducted primarily in French, students continue to refine all four aspects of language acquisition: interpersonal communication, listening and reading comprehension, and written production while exploring aspects of the Francophone culture. By the end of French 1B, students will reach the novice mid level and communicate with more confidence in basic everyday situations and on familiar topics related to sports, weather, time and seasons, major life events, clothing, travel, countries of the world, and life at home.

French 1

This course introduces students to the French language and Francophone culture and is designed for those with little or no prior exposure to French. French 1 aims to build a solid foundation for the future study of the French language by teaching our students everyday linguistic and communicative skills within a real life context. Our curriculum provides an opportunity for students to learn by listening, speaking, reading, and writing, and it exposes them to the traditions, customs, and culture of French-speaking countries. The course is conducted primarily in French and provides a solid foundation at the novice-low level. Students develop basic receptive and productive skills through practice of useful structures, forms, and vocabulary related to school, family, friends, pastimes, places around town, ordering in a restaurant, shopping, weather, sports, parts of a house, household chores, parties and celebrations, travel arrangements, and hotel accommodations. At the end of French IA, students will be able to talk about current and future events to express basic needs, ask and answer questions, and discuss everyday situations.

French 2

Prerequisite: French 1.

Conducted primarily in the target language, students explore major linguistic concepts such as narrating past events, nuances of time in the past time frames, making comparisons, and expressing probability. Students further refine their receptive and productive skills while engaging in various tasks that address all four aspects of language acquisition: oral communication, listening and reading comprehension, and written production. Beyond authentic media resources, students are introduced to more complex authentic texts, such as poetry and short letters, with the objective of using the language to express themselves by composing their first piece of creative writing in French. By the end of this course, students should acquire novice-high to intermediate-low level of proficiency in all communicative skills.

Honors French 2

Prerequisites: French 1 and departmental approval.

The Honors French 2 course is an intermediate-low level course that expects students to communicate primarily in the target language. Students work at an accelerated pace, emphasizing rapid acquisition of new and more complex language concepts with the main focus on productive communicative skills. Beyond interpreting authentic media, students are exposed to challenging and complex authentic texts, such as poetry and short letters, in order to encourage them to express themselves more subjectively and compose their first piece of creative writing in French. Students learn major linguistic concepts including narrating in the past, nuances of time in the past time frames, comparing and contrasting, discussing future events and expressing probability. Students further practice and refine their communicative skills while addressing all four aspects of language acquisition: interpersonal communication, listening and reading comprehension, and written and speaking production.

French 3

Prerequisite: French 2.

In French 3, students begin working toward an intermediate-low level of proficiency stated by the Common European Framework of Reference of Languages (CEFR) framework. As they move through the course, students work toward being able to understand the main points of clear standard input on familiar matters regularly encountered in work, school, leisure, etc. Students develop the skills necessary to deal with most situations likely to arise while traveling in an area where the language is spoken. Students produce simple connected text on topics, which are familiar or of personal interest, and describe experiences and events, dreams, hopes and ambitions. In addition, students briefly give reasons and explanations for opinions and plans. These outcomes are achieved through task-based activities and engagement with a variety of relevant and authentic written and spoken materials. The tasks students carry out include, among others, writing an email to apply for an internship, creating a series of predictions about the future referring to hypothetical situations and expressing varying degrees of certainty, formulating a list of rules for behavior on a school trip abroad, summarizing and relaying spoken and written messages, and critiquing movies, television shows, and novels.