74778 - French Language (8 Cfu) (A-L)

Learning outcomes

At the end of the course, the student: - possesses basic active and passive knowledge of the French language. In particular, the student is able to: - read, take notes, and follow a discussion in French; - tackle specialized language in the political and media fields within French-speaking cultures.

Course contents

The course is structured in three distinct analyses of the history of contemporary France:

• An analysis of the relationship between France and some of its former African colonies (particularly Burkina Faso, Niger, Mali, and Senegal).

• An analysis of the relations between France and its overseas territories (particularly Mayotte, New Caledonia, Martinique, and Guadeloupe).

• An in-depth study of the situation of the immigrant population in mainland France (particularly the issue of secularism and the challenges of integration in the internal political debate).

During the lessons, reports, newspaper articles, and excerpts from narrative texts will be presented in order to understand the complexity of the aforementioned relationships.

Readings/Bibliography

The study material will be available on www.virtuale.unibo.it, the portal for managing university teaching materials.

For non-attending students, the following text is recommended for preparation:

Grammaire progressive du français – niveau intermédiaire (A2-B1), 4^e édition, Maïa Grégoire, Odile Thievenaz, CLE international, 2017.

Teaching methods

Lectures, discussions, presentations.

Teaching at Y:

• The first 9 lessons (18 hours) will be lectures for all attending students.

• The following 6 lessons (12 hours) will be seminar sessions: the first 3 (6 hours) for students in group A-L, and the remaining 3 (6 hours) for students in group M-Z.

Assessment methods

ATTENDING STUDENTS

The exam consists of two parts: Language Exercises (written exam with the language instructors, first part of the second semester) + Monographic Course (written exam with the professor, second part of the second semester). The final grade is calculated based on the weighted average of both parts.

The Language Exercises exam takes place at the end of the first 30 hours of the second semester.

Monographic Course Exam Procedure

• The exam will be held in person.
• The exam lasts one hour and thirty minutes.
• The exam consists of 15 closed-ended questions and 5 open-ended questions regarding text comprehension.

NON-ATTENDING STUDENTS

The exam consists of two parts (grammar written test and oral language assessment [conversation] based on the materials used in class and available on Virtuale) to be taken in the same exam session.

A) WRITTEN TEST

• (60 minutes) Grammar knowledge assessment. Passing the written test (18/30) is required to access the oral part.
• Written test passed: Access to the oral part (section B).
• Written test not passed: Students who do not pass the written test cannot access the oral exam and must retake the entire exam at another session. There is no skipping of sessions.

GRAMMAR PROGRAM FOR THE WRITTEN TEST

• The definite and indefinite article
• Articulated prepositions
• Personal pronouns (subject, tonic, object, and indirect object)
• The pronouns "en" and "y"
• Conjugation of the three verb groups in all tenses and moods, including the subjunctive. The past anterior is excluded.
• Gender and number of nouns and adjectives (formation of the feminine and plural forms)
• Possessive and demonstrative adjectives and pronouns
• The negative form with all its specificities
• Interrogative forms in their three modes
• Pronominal verbs
• Partitive articles and their negative form
• Prepositions and time expressions (il y a, depuis, etc.), place expressions (devant, derrière, face à, etc.), prepositions with geographical names (countries and regions)
• The use of: “très, beaucoup, and beaucoup de”
• Indefinite adjectives and pronouns (quantity and quality)
• Impersonal verbs (impersonal constructions)
• Simple and compound relative pronouns
• The three gallicisms
• The choice between “ce” or “il” before être (c’est / il est)
• Formation of adverbs of quantity, place, and time
• Constructions with opinion verbs (use of the subjunctive or not)
• The passive voice
• The three degrees of hypothesis
• Indirect speech in the past with specific changes in the sentence (si, ce que)
• Various discourse connectors (par rapport à, envers, en revanche, donc, etc.)
• Grammar preparation can be done with the textbook used in class.

B) LANGUAGE ASSESSMENT

The student will study the dossier of texts available on Virtuale: all of these will be part of the exam. The student will be questioned in French about the content of the documents in the dossier.

Teaching tools

Projection of audio-visual materials; e-learning platforms.

Links to further information

https://virtuale.unibo.it/course/view.php?id=67803

Office hours

See the website of Ferdinand Mourier