Portland Community College | Portland, Oregon

FR 256 is the second term of a three term sequence, which equals two full years of college French. It provides the same content as FR 103 and 201, but in a one term accelerated format. FR 256 continues the work begun in FR 255, expanding and perfecting the communicative use of French and cultural awareness.
FR 256 is offered for eight hours of transfer credit. Four hours of credit count as elective hours and four hours of credit count toward Arts and Letters distribution requirements for the A.A. degree. In addition, the eight credits satisfy part of the foreign language requirement for the B.A. degree and contribute to the general education requirement for other Associate Degrees.

Students successfully completing FR 256:

1. Are able to handle successfully a variety of uncomplicated, basic and communicative tasks and social situations in a culturally acceptable manner.
2. Can talk simply about self and family members.
3. Can ask and answer questions and participate in simple conversations on topics beyond the most immediate needs; e.g., personal history and leisure time activities.
4. Can generally be understood by sympathetic native speakers.

Students are expected to attend all classes, participate actively in classroom activities, and prepare oral and written homework assignments. Students will 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 a minimum of 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:
 

1. Communication topics
   1. Education
   2. Ordering, paying, food and drink
   3. Telephoning, directions
   4. Expressing personal opinions and attitudes
   5. Accepting and giving thanks and compliments and recommendations
   6. Narration in the past
   7. Transportation, housing
   8. Hypothetical situations, suggestions
   9. Disagreeing and protesting
2. Structures
   1. Future, the two past tenses, pluperfect, conditional,
   2. past conditional
   3. Additional adverbs and restrictive ne...que
   4. Additional practice with articles and object pronouns
   5. Relative pronouns
   6. Irregular nouns
   7. Indefinite expressions
   8. Additional time and negative expressions
   9. Causative faire and similar constructions
   10. Present participle
   11. Introduction to indirect discourse