Intermediate French Language, History and Culture
These intermediate- and advanced-level French courses aim to help students to deepen their spoken and written competency in order to communicate with ease in France, to benefit fully from their courses at the Paris Center and from their stay in Paris (and in France), and to understand all the forms of spoken and written discourse to which they will be exposed. Coursework includes helping students 1) to expand their vocabulary in a variety of domains relevant to French life, both in a contemporary and an historical context, and 2) to improve their aural and written comprehension through the use of authentic texts (e.g. films, TV and radio excerpts, newspaper and magazine articles, book excerpts, photos, etc.) and the acquisition of grammatical tools and techniques underlying standard spoken and written expression. As part of these courses, students in groups of 3-4 will have 2 outings each week with peer native speakers. These outings will serve to help students gain true interactional competence and will help them to gain important sociocultural knowledge and know-how impossible to convey in a classroom setting.
The goal of this course is to help students to perfect their French pronunciation and deepen their knowledge of the spoken language. Students will work on phonetics with the goal of bettering their aural comprehension and spoken expression. French phonetics will be examined both from a theoretical perspective (articulation, rythme and intonation) and from a practical perspective, by means of activities that will highlight spoken expression and the comprehension of authentic discourse (film excerpts, plays, conferences, etc.). Certain exercises will prepare students to give academic papers and lectures.
From frontier city on the outskirts of the Roman empire to Global City of our 21st century, Paris has slowly been invented as kings, poets, emperors and presidents have made the city their home. Any contemporary look at Paris struggles to see the full complexity of this history. How can one understand a city so charged with history and yet so much a part of our present? In this context, Paris may best be understood as a palimpsest, overlapping layers that replace each other without ever fully erasing the past. In this course we will explore the remains of the past in contemporary Paris. Through monuments, texts, museums and rivers, we will search for and discover the continuities which have made a present of Paris’ past.
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Study Abroad Office, Harper 203