Portland Community College | Portland, Oregon

Continuing the work begun in First Year French, FR 250 is the first term of the two term intermediate college course in French. Communicative proficiency is the main objective of the sequence. The development of the four skills of listening, speaking, reading, and writing is continued with emphasis on active use of these skills. In addition, students will expand their cultural awareness and appreciation.
FR 250 is offered for six hours of transferable credit. It satisfies part of the foreign language requirement for the B.A. degree, counts as an Arts and Letters distribution requirement for the A.A. degree, and contributes to the general education requirement for other Associate Degrees.
Recommended: Successful completion of First Year French at the college level or the equivalent language experience in French, competency to be determined by the teacher. Students whose skill level in French is more advanced than that of FR 250 will not be admitted.

Students successfully completing FR 250:
 

A. Handle a limited number of uncomplicated communicative tasks in straightforward social situations.
B. Communicate more effectively with some rephrasing and circumlocution with native speakers accustomed to dealing with non-native
speakers.
C. Further develop discourse to narrate and describe in more detail and length using a variety of time frames and modes with greater
accuracy.
D. Recognize and interpret cultural behaviors and attitudes within the French speaking world in relation to one’s own cultural perspective.
E. Further analyze historical and cultural movements in the target culture in relation to key works of art, literature, music, film and/or
performing arts.
F. Analyze and develop responses to selected authentic materials in the target language.

Students are expected to attend all classes, participate actively in classroom activities, and prepare oral and written homework assignments. Students may work with audio tapes in the media center or at home, and they may meet with the teacher in conferences. After the introduction to the course, French will be used in the classroom at all times. Students should plan to spend about one hour in preparation and practice outside of class for each class hour.

Students are assessed globally rather than from the point of view of the presence or absence of a given linguistic feature. Students will be assessed through a daily evaluation of their individual progress and improving competence in using the language as demonstrated by the quality of oral and written preparation and participation and daily oral and written assignments. Though tests are not used as an assessment tool, attendance is an important factor.

The course focuses on the acquisition and correct use of pronunciation and intonation, grammatical structures, functional vocabulary, and cultural concepts for the purpose of successful communication in French. Successful students have reviewed, expanded, and perfected previously learned material, have practiced, and will be able to use the following communication topics and structures:
Communication topics:
 

1. Transportation
2. Hypothetical situations
3. Suggestions
4. Directions
5. Housing
6. Narration in the past
7. Disagreeing and protesting
8. Entertainment
9. Expressing preferences, opinions, attitudes, emotions

Structures:
 

1. The two past tenses, pluperfect, conditional, past conditional
2. Irregular nouns
3. Indefinite expressions
4. Additional time and negative expressions
5. Causative faire and similar constructions
6. Present participle
7. Introduction to indirect discourse
8. Subjunctive and past subjunctive
9. Double pronoun objects