French Year 3 (Intermediate)

Please note that some topics of French 2 will be revised at the beginning of the academic year. The course outline below is only a guide and topics will be studied according to students' needs and progress.

Term 1

Topics covered

Topics taught in French 2 that are covered again: Past events; events in the recent past and near future; work and studies; leisure activities.
Social and work situations in France: Town and country, housing; Every day current vocabulary; Idiomatic expressions; Lifestyles; Interviews; education + individual presentations (10' powerpoint presentation on a topic that the student has chosen + 5-10' discussion with the group and individual feedback) + end of term assessment

Grammatical structures

Revision of present tense, recent past, near future and future; Perfect and imperfect tenses; Possessive pronouns; Simple relative pronouns (I): qui/que/où/dont; Interrogative structures; Comparative and superlative; verbs and prepositions; hypotheses (present and past); conditional; adverbs.

Learning objectives

o Exchanging points of view in a social/professional context with dialogues and e-mails
o building up more complex sentences with interrogative forms
o referring to past and future events
o Understanding texts in the past, describing past events and experiences.
o Present and defend a personal opinion; being able to structure the speech in a more detailed and natural way;
o Expand vocabulary and range of idiomatic expressions;
o Improve communication skills in the target language both in writing and speaking confidence (eg talk about yourself, your activities and projects more naturally);
o Learn more about French culture.

Term 2

Topics covered

Travelling: interviews of expatriates; Moving abroad: Planning and discussing as a group; Holidays choices; food and recipes; health; environment; news/current affairs with a comparative approach + individual presentations; authentic resources audio and video.

Grammatical structures

Restriction: ne…que; Conditional; Subjunctive (I) Introduction; The situation in space and time: il y a/ depuis ; connectors; composed relative pronouns ; impersonal forms; complex interrogatives.

Learning objectives

o Developing more spoken fluency with prepared topics and vocabulary
o Being able to talk about the future and make hypotheses
o Being able to give notions of time, duration, etc.
o Enriching vocabulary to be able to give one's impressions (enthusiasm, indifference, dislike).
o Approving, disagreeing, justifying a choice, expressing intention
o French social current affairs/ learn more about French society

Term 3

Topics covered

Work situations in France (work on Sundays); Topical questions of society, current affairs; Letter writing; Setting up a project; NGO's/volunteering projects; arts, literature and cinema; creative writing.

Grammatical structures

Subjunctive (II) use and irregular constructions; Word order (with adverbs, in negative sentences); Pronouns: en, y; Demonstrative pronouns; Interrogative pronouns; Prepositions after certain verbs; Formation of adverbs => review of what has been covered in terms 1 and 2 and adding layers in complex elements such as subjunctive, irregular constructions,...

Learning objectives

o Taking part in discussions
o Acquiring vocabulary and expressions when comparing, disagreeing, being able to express intention
o Improving listening comprehension on prepared topics: dialogues between two people
o Writing letter and e-mail expressing disappointment/ disagreement.
o Complaining
o Argumentation (developing a critical point of view on a general or specialised topic)
o Start to have a sense of fun and creativity in the target language