This Intermediate French beginner programme is designed to provide you with a good idea of what you might cover over a typical course. It is flexible rather than prescriptive, in that it would be adapted to your specific level, aims and interests. Of course, it will also depend on the number of lessons you will have.
The topics/vocabulary or grammar won’t necessarily be studied in this order.
Topics & Vocabulary:
- Writing a variety of texts (text messages, emails, letters etc.)
- Summarising and reporting information
- Presentations: structures and phrases
- Looking for a job/Writing a French CV and cover letter
- Talking about the professional world
- Expressing obligation, possibilities and restrictions
- Student life
- Expressing aims and causes
- Friendship: talking about relatives/ friends’ personality
- Relationships with the neighbours / Houseshare, flatshare
- Personal relationships: love stories
- Formal/ Informal register
- Understanding touristic information and book a holiday
- Green tourism/ Original places to visit
- Stereotypes/ Talking about a country and its inhabitants
- Living in a town/ in the countryside: advantages/ disadvantages
- Media: newspapers/ radio/ Internet
- Cinema/ Understanding a critic/ Describing a fictional character
- Expressing, promoting and justifying opinions
- Expressing your wishes, hopes and dreams
- Humanitarian aid: talking about aspirations
- Hypothesising
- Expressing regrets
- Talking about your personal interests
- Talking about past experiences
- Providing a detailed description
- Talking about travels/ Talking about countries and regions
- Making suggestions
- Describing/ expressing feelings and emotions
- Debating: politics, recycling, the environment, new technologies, social issues, consumerism, the media
- Language register: colloquial idioms
Cultural content:
- Business etiquette
- French media
- The French Educational system
- Songs in French
- Francophonie
- French poetry/ literature
- French cinema (films, directors, actors and Cannes Festival))
- Political life in France
Skills Work:
- Lots of speaking/active practice
- Lots of listening
- Lots of new vocabulary
- Producing various styles of written French
- Pronunciation
Grammar:
- Review of the future tenses
- Relative pronouns: qui, que, à qui
- Passé composé vs imparfait (revision)
- Past participle agreement (revision)
- Plus-que-parfait (Past perfect)
- Direct vs indirect pronouns (revision)
- Structures to give a definiton : c’est+ infinitive, c’est quand, c’est + noun+ relative preposition
- Reported speech: structures and tense agreement
- Conditional present
- Comparisons
- The superlative (ex: le meilleur, les meilleurs, les plus beaux etc)
- Subjunctive present
- Impersonal structures – il faut que etc.
- Time indicators (pendant, depuis, de…, à, en etc)
- Structures to express advice (imperative, verb devoir + infinitive, si+ present/ future tense, Il faut que + subjunctive)
- Subjunctive to express a necessity
- Indefinite pronouns and adverbs : quelqu’un, rien, personne, nulle part etc.
- Adverbs
- Relative pronouns « où » and « dont »
- Pronouns « en » and « y » when talking about a place
- Pronouns order
- Gerund (ex: en chantant: while singing)
- Adding emphasis by using the structures “ce qui/ ce que/ ce dont/ c’est … qui, c’est …. que »
- Nomalisation
- Demonstrative pronouns « celui », « celle », « ceux », « celles » etc
- Past tenses: general revision
- Passive form
- Past participle agreement with the direct complement
- Personal pronouns after the prepositions “à” and “de”
- Expressing a wish (souhaiter que + subjounctive, espérer que + indicative, j’aimerais + infinitive/ je voudrais que+ subjunctive)
- Conditional to make a suggestion
- Expressing an aim/ objective: afin que + subjunctive, afin de + infinitive, pour, pour que)
- Conditional to talk about a project
- Connectors to express a cause/ a consequence
- Hypothesis using “si”
- Past conditional
- Collective nouns agreement (ex : une majorité de, la plupart de etc)
- Structures with verbs expressing feelings (ex: Je regrette que/ Je regrette de etc.)
- Style and register: formal/ informal
- Idiomatic expressions/ proverbs.
All the lessons are truly tailor-made courses and customisable. I will listen to you and adapt and modify them where and when appropriate. To discuss your needs or course content, please contact me.