Advanced Topics in French
Advanced Topics in French Online High School Course
COURSE LENGTH:
Full Year (30 Sessions)
Course Overview:
In Advanced Topics in French, students continue to hone their skills and understanding in French. This course’s pace and coverage of material is designed to allow interested students the opportunity to take the AP Exam in French Language and Culture, but that is not a requirement of the course. AT French learners will explore several themes that are relevant to the AP exam and beyond, including: how the roles of family and friends differ across countries; how consumerism affects our lives; how art can both reflect and defy cultural norms and can provide a window to the past; how technology has opened doors to important discoveries and advancements but perhaps also causes us to spend too much of our time in front of screens; how global challenges can unite cultures as we search together for solutions to global warming and equal human rights; and how multiculturalism within a society varies from country to country.
Students will practice conversations between friends, family members, students and professors, politicians, artists, diplomats, and journalists. They will write long and complex answers to reading comprehension questions, compose both formal and informal emails, write social media posts, and journal entries, give advice, and write creative original stories. They will continue to develop their ability to analyze authentic source materials and present or compare their opinions in deeper and more detailed writing.
Students will be assessed on their listening, speaking, reading, and writing assignments both in class and through their homework. Each unit contains formative assessments that allow students to use the grammatical structures and vocabulary words from each unit in a series of reading, writing, listening, and speaking prompts. At this level, students will continue to write using complex multi-clause sentences and compose longer written work that contains multiple paragraphs. Students will finesse their writing so that they can more easily use a wide array of grammatical constructs and verb tenses to express themselves. They will work on writing and self-correcting analytical essays that defend a hypothesis and include clear introductions and conclusions. This course also includes several practice AP Exams that allow students to demonstrate their wide range of skills in the French language.
Learning Objectives:
Students will:
Review and enhance their understanding of several verb tenses, including the présent, impératif, passé composé, imparfait, plus-que-parfait, conditionnel, gérondif, futur proche, futur simple, and subjonctif
Learn how to write and self-correct an argumentative essay
Learn the correct way to write formal and informal email correspondence in French
Finesse all the small details of French written work such as object agreement, gender agreement in adjectives, the correct use of relative pronouns in complex compound sentences, etc.
Be able to transition between several tenses within the same story when speaking
The course aims to improve reading and listening comprehension, speaking ability, and cultural competency. Upon completion, students should be able to communicate at an Advanced Low to Advanced Mid level proficiency (working towards Advanced High).