Brief description

1. The first weekly hour, and those written assignments which derive from it, will be devoted to reading, writing and listening in French. This will take the form of a course book, Nouveau sans Frontieres 4, which offers a wide variety of authentic materials pertaining to aspects of French life and culture. The aim is to consolidate skills developed in Levels 1 and 2, to understand and manipulate French with increasing fluency and confidence in class work which will focus on textual analysis, essay-writing, report-writing and precis techniques, on reading and aural comprehension.

2. The second weekly hour is a conversation class with a native-speaker. You will be expected to prepare material for these classes and your success in them depends very much on your active participation.

3. The fortnightly hour will be devoted to translation from and into French (version and theme respectively). The register of the texts chosen will tend to be modern literary. The constraints imposed by the requirement to remain faithful to the original text mean that this exercise is perhaps the most rigorous and demanding test of your capacity to manipulate French, and one of the better ways to highlight and explore, at an advanced level, the grammatical and structural complexities of the language.

Written work will be set regularly, and must be handed in on time: your tutor, like you, works to a demanding timetable and will not be able to accommodate late submission of work. Marks for assessed work will go towards your degree result, and failure to hand in work as required will rapidly reduce your overall marks on the module.   

Learning outcomes

- quantify your own improvement in French vocabulary, grammatical knowledge and spoken language since before going abroad
- translate idiomatically into and out of French, using factual or fictional texts
- translate selected unseen passages in class
- prepare passages for translation and discussion in class
- explain and justify your own choice and use of different linguistic registers
- demonstrate active command of stylistic levels of French
- demonstrate competence in preparing effectively for essay-writing: structuring work, constructing logical argument and expressing ideas in the appropriate linguistic register
- apply language skills acquired in French, and during the year abroad, with particular emphasis on achieving as native-like a pronunciation as possible
- express yourself with confidence using a rich and varied vocabulary
- apply orally the complex vocabulary and grammatical structures introduced in written classes
- present independently prepared material in spoken or written French
- analyse and discuss complex French texts
- give detailed insight into French cultural and political affairs

Language modules have, as an integral part of their structure, regular homework assignments and class tests as well as end of year examinations. All assessment is designed to measure your progress against learning outcomes at the appropriate level.

Reading Lists