Luke Arnason, arnason@yorku.ca

The primary aim of this course is to prepare students to succeed in university-level courses taught in French, in any of the 3 disciplines of which French studies are comprised: language, literature and linguistics. This entails several specific competencies: to read journalistic, scholarly and literary texts in French with the level of comprehension and attention to detail required for undergraduate study; to understand the fundamental structures of French grammar in order to enter into the logic of the language and improve one’s linguistic ability through autonomous study outside of class; to apply these structures to write correctly, and to proofread one’s own texts and the texts of others; to understand the oral production of Francophone speakers in a variety of registers; to speak and pronounce correctly and coherently in a register appropriate to academic discussion; to gain an elementary grounding in the cultural knowledge required to understand modern French society, and that is expected in educated Francophone circles; and to become familiar with a number of methodological tools relevant to language learning specifically, and to academic study more generally. The course places roughly equal emphasis on written and oral production.

Prerequisite / Co-requisite: AP/FR 0130 6.00 (with a minimum grade of C), or GL/FR 1500 6.00 (with a minimum grade of C), or through language placement test.

Course credit exclusions: AP/FR 1060 6.00, GL/FRLS 1510 6.00 (prior to Fall 2013), GL/FRLS 1512 3.00, GL/FRLS 1515 3.00, GL/FRLS 1525 3.00.

RÉSEAU : Communication, Intégration, Intersections, 2e éd., Jean Marie Schultz et Marie-Paule Tranvouez, Pearson Education, 2015, with subscription to MyFrenchLab.

English Grammar for Students of French, 7th ed., Jacqueline Morton, Olivia & Hill, 2013. [Print or electronic format]

Bescherelle. La Grammaire pour tous, Nouvelle éd., Nicolas Laurent & Bénédicte Delaunay, Hatier, 2019. [N.B. It is very important to get the Hatier edition (red cover) not the Hurtubise edition (green cover). Additionally, this title is not available through the York University Bookstore. Please await the beginning of classes for instructions on how to obtain this title.]

Bescherelle. Chronologie de l’histoire de France des origines à nos jours, Nouvelle éd., Guillaume Bourel, Marielle Chevallier, Axelle Guillausseau, Hatier, 2019. [N.B. This title is not available through the York University Bookstore. Please await the beginning of classes for instructions on how to obtain this title.]

Quizzes: 20%

Oral presentation: 10%

Reading assignment (oral): 10%

Various written assignments and/or exercises: 30%

Written test: 15%

Oral test: 15%

By the end of this course, students should be able to:

• Recognise the critical importance of engaging with the French language on a daily basis outside of class through engagement with authentic Francophone media (television, radio, press, literature, etc.) in the aim of expanding vocabulary and developing fluency.
• Constitute a personal collection of preferred resources for the above purpose.
• Identify the parts of speech and perform syntactic analysis of French phrases, thereby understanding the interdependence of different components of the phrase.
• Use the above knowledge confidently and methodically proofread and correct French texts, especially with respect to conjugation and agreement.
• Understand and apply the following aspects of French grammar in the context of real written or oral communication:
  • The mechanics of conjugation (subject pronouns, stems, endings, and how to derive all the above)
  • Agreement, especially as it relates to nouns, adjectives and past participles.
  • The formation and appropriate usage of the main past tenses, including the passé simple, in the context of past tense narrations in different registers
  • Temporal expressions and other figures establishing chronological sequence
  • Advanced expressions of negation, including “ne… que”, “ne… jamais”, “ne… plus” etc.
  • The comparative, superlative and how to express degrees of intensity
• Successfully interpret assignment instructions, understand what knowledge and/or skills they are asking students to demonstrate, and respond accordingly.
• Know what efforts and steps are necessary to understand a French text and employ the requisite strategies (vocabulary research, synthesis, background research, etc.) to be able to talk or write about it with a level of detail and depth appropriate to university-level study.
• Read a French text aloud with pronunciation and intonation that does not impede the listener’s ability to understand. This includes making an effort to correctly pronounce French’s more “difficult” phonemes (such as R, or U), being able to identify and correctly pronounce nasal vowels, to know how to handle final consonants, and make liaisons where necessary.
• Engage in discussion in relation to cultural themes covered in class in either written or oral form. In oral situations, students should be able to speak in a structured and coherent manner even in in-the-moment situations (i.e. not reading a text prepared in advance), such as when responding to a question posed by the professor, or in responding to a point raised by a classmate.
• Gain awareness of some of the most important historical periods, figures, places and trends in French culture, and comment on their lasting impact in the present day, or their similarities/differences relative to Canadian culture.
• Demonstrate basic understanding of the objectives and methods of the fields of linguistics and literature.