Infos
Bonjour
French Beginners
IMPORTANT INFORMATION
Thank you for your interest in the French program at Continuing Education. This outline will help you to prepare for the course and to plan for future courses. For a comprehensive guide to choosing the right language level or finding out which courses are on offer, visit our languages website at: www.cce.usyd.edu/languages or call 9036 4789.
COURSE DESCRIPTION
One of our most popular languages! French is regularly offered in weeknight, weekend and weekday intensive classes. Native speaking teachers. Maximum of 16 students in Level 2 and above.
LEARNING OUTCOMES
This level is for absolute beginners and no prior knowledge of the language is assumed. Teachers use as much French as possible, but explanations of grammar and vocabulary may be in English. This level is also suitable for travellers: the topics covered will provide you with a basic survival vocabulary for your trip to France. Beginners covers the introductory unit Bienvenue as well as units 1 and 2 of the textbook The French Experience (BBC, 2004)
TOPICS COVERED
Themes include:
Greetings, asking for things
Alphabet, numbers
Nationalities – introducing oneself and describing one’s family.
Grammar included:
Articles (definite and indefinite/singular and plural),
Present tense of verbs être, avoir, s’appeler
Asking simple questions, possessive adjectives.
What to bring to class: textbook (see Readings/Texts), notepad and paper.
Between classes: We recommend you spend at least a few hours between classes practising your vocabulary and the grammatical structures you have learned.
Teachers: All our teachers are fully qualified with extensive teaching experience. Whilst they are required to follow the outline for the course, we leave it to individual teachers to decide the approach they will take and the activities they will use in the classrooms.
PRE-REQUISITES
Beginner classes assume no prior knowledge.
READING / TEXTS
Beginners – Level 1
The French Experience (BBC, 2004). (ISBN 0-563-47256-1)
Please note the ISBN reference numbers are for the recommended textbooks ONLY. The purchase of any accompanying material including CDs is completely at the student’s discretion and is not required for the course.
The following suppliers carry our recommended textbooks:
The Language Book Centre, 131 York St, Sydney (First floor, Abbeys Bookshop behind the Queen Victoria Building). Ph: 9267 1397 OR www.languagebooks.com.au
Take your enrolment receipt and a copy of this outline to Abbeys to receive a 10% discount off the price of the recommended text for your course.
The University Co-op Bookshop, Sydney University Sport & Aquatic Centre, cnr Codrington Ave & Darlington Road, Sydney University Ph: 9351 3705 OR www.coop-bookshop.com.au
As we are occasionally forced to cancel classes if they do not meet minimum enrolments we suggest you do not buy the textbook until one week before classes start. Please check with the Centre if you have any queries in this regard.
ASSESSMENT
Certificates of attendance are awarded to those students who have satisfactorily completed at least 75% of a course.
Certificates are issued for all language levels and given out at the final class of the program.
ATTENDANCE
75% attendance is required to receive a certificate of completion
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Students wishing to continue their studies are advised to enrol early to avoid missing out on a place or the course being cancelled due to low enrolments. While having the same teacher as you progress through language levels can be reassuring, please remember the more exposure you get to different accents and teaching methods the better prepared you will be to face the reality of speaking and understanding the language when traveling!
The Centre aims to offer as many languages and levels as we can however for languages that have smaller intakes it is impossible to offer every level in every program. If the language or the level that you want does not appear in the program, give us a call on 9036 4789 and we’lll let you know when we may be offering it again.
