FR 201 Second Year French, Term 1

Lecture Hours: 4
Credits: 4

Provides extensive practice in all four language skills (reading, writing, speaking, and listening). Includes cultural and literary readings and an in-depth review and expansion of basic French grammar and vocabulary, as well as a broadening of the student’s understanding of Francophone culture. All classroom interaction (both by instructor and students) takes place in French.

Prerequisite: Placement into WR 115 (or higher); or completion of WR 090 (or concurrent enrollment), or WR 115 (or higher); or consent of instructor. (All prerequisite courses must be completed in a grade of C or better.
Recommended: FR 103, or three years of high school French. (All recommended courses must be completed with a grade of C or better.)

Student Learning Outcomes:

Respond simply and logically in familiar conversational situations.
Interpret main ideas from common oral sources such as announcements and broadcasts.
Communicate information and ideas orally using complete sentences.
Initiate and sustain conversation on familiar topics grounded in personal experience.
Interpret main ideas and details from simple written materials.
Write accurately-structured simple sentences in the past, present, and future time frames.
Write short comprehensible letters and compositions on topics grounded in personal experience.
Interpret and use several behaviors and basic nonverbal cues.
Describe selected aspects of the geography, history, artistic heritage, and cultural practices of the French-speaking world.

Content Outline

Lesson 1: Feeling and living
- Personal relations
  - Spelling-change verbs
  - The irregular verbs être, avoir, faire, and aller
  - Forming questions
  - Present tense of regular -er, -ir, and -re verbs
  - The imperative
  - American Francophones
Lesson 2: Living in the city
- In the city
  - Reflexive and reciprocal verbs
  - Descriptive adjectives and adjective agreement
  - Adverbs
  - Nouns and articles
  - Il est and c’est (It is)
  - Rhythm on the street: The Music Festival
Lesson 3 Media influence
- The media universe
  - The compound past with to have
  - The compound past with to be
  - The compound past vs.the imperfect
  - Possessive adjectives
  - The imperfect
- Guy Laliberté: An unusual man