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  • SAS Core Learning: AHq
  • Language Taught In: Taught in English
  • Credits: 3

Course Description: This course is the second part of a two-course French for Reading Knowledge sequence. It is designed to help students who have little or no previous French training learn how to read French quickly and efficiently. In addition to the textbook, a variety of resources are used to practice reading French, including newspaper articles, classic French texts, and film (we learn through reading French sub-titles!). The course is taught synchronously as a reading/translation workshop, during which the class works together to develop their reading skills. This course is not open to students having had 2 or more years of High School French. (Not open for credit to students who have had two or more years of secondary school French).

Learning goals

Students in this course will acquire the ability to read and understand written French at an intermediate-mid level of competency based on the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages guidelines.

Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

  • read, understand, and translate, with the help of a dictionary, complex prose in standard French
  • read and understand, with the help of a dictionary, scholarly texts pertinent to their field of research

Satisfies core curriculum learning goal

AHq –Understand the nature of human languages and their speakers.

For standard language acquisition courses this will entail grasping:

a. The essential components of language as a communication system
b. How meaning is represented and conveyed in language
c. The relationship between speech and writing 

Required Texts: French for Reading.  Karl C. Sandberg and Eddison C. Tatham Prentice-Hall, 1997. ISBN: 978 0133316032 This book has recently gone out of print; however, free downloads are readily available online. The first few chapters will be available on our Canvas site.

Grading:

Exams: 30%
Quizzes:15%
Translations: 15%
Take-Home Translation: 15%
Presentations: 5%
Participation: 20%

Schedule of Undergraduate Courses