Introduction
Many students decide to learn another language for various reasons. Some of them frequently travel to particular countries for business or pleasure, while some are heritage speakers having grown-up surrounded by the language, but never had the opportunity to learn it formally, while still others just feel drawn to a specific language and culture. However you find yourself on the path to learning a new language, the most important factor in your sucess is motivation. Students who are intrinsically motivated to learn, free from presure from outside forces, will have the will to perservere when faced with the challenges that language learning entails.
This course is designed to give new studentsa solid foundation so that if they choose to continue their French studies, they will be comfortable with the basics and have a solid base upon which to further develop their language skills. This is not a travel class, but the focus is on converation and will not go into the structures required for formal written communication. Students will be able to read and write informally, and I encourage students to read whatever type of material they enjoy reading in English as this will further assist them in developing their language skills, and gain the vocabulary necessary to disucuss topics that are of interest to them either personnally or professionally. Keep in mind that learning a new language is a life-long process. At times you may feel discouraged becuase you think you have a log way to go, but remember to take a look back and reflect on how far you have come since beginning! Learning comes in fits and starts, so don't get put off if you don't feel like you are progressing if if you just don't have time to work on your skills. Just try to maintain what you have learned and eventually you'll get back on track to move forward.
This course makes use of two main educational approaches: a constructivist approach used to select the target language competencies, and an instructionally cognitive approach for mastery of the content. So what does this mean? Well, simply put, the language goals were chosen and ordered so that they seamlessly build a solid grammatical and conversational base upon which students can continue to build their language sills without having to go back in fill-in the gaps that other, more conversational/expression-based methods create. Here, the goal is to master the basics and have the ability to move forward instead of just learning some quick-fix expressions for common situations. Although daily topics will be covered, the goal is that the student will have the grammatical basis mastered so that when they come across an unknown word, they can figure it out from context or simply ask for a clarification without getting lost in the grammatical structure. For example, instead of teaching "Where is the bathroom?" and giving a few common responses that almost rarely fit in a real-life exchange, students learn how to formulate their own questions and responses using basic structures and plugging-in the necessary vocabulary to accomplish their goal. This way, students can create their own language, and say what they want, not follow a script. By understanding the underlining structure, students will be better equipped to understand native speakers even if they use unfamiliar words.
The cognitive instructional approach simply makes learning these structures easier since all material is presented in a logical order with one piece building on the next. Additionally, students will be required to understand how the structures work and why their use is appropriate given a certain situation. By acquiring language in this way, students can continue to further develop their language skills by adding on to the basic structures until they are familiar with all aspects of conversational grammar structure, and from there, it's just about learning new words to expand their spoken repertoire.
All you have to do now is give it a shot, take your time, and enjoy the process.
Bon courage!