GENERAL FRENCH- Upper-Intermediate Programme

This General French upper-intermediate 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.

vocabularyTopics & Vocabulary:

  • Changing career: talking about a change/ understanding a CV or a biography
  • Talking about past event/achievements
  • Reporting a past conversation
  • Expressing regrets
  • Making choices
  • Imagining a different past
  • Ecology
  • Understanding a manifesto
  • Encouraging actions
  • Taking sides/ expressing an opinion
  • Literature: telling a story, talking about a book
  • Expressing opinions and feelings
  • Talking about differences
  • Advising/ suggesting
  • Gender equality
  • Expressing annoyance/ impatience
  • Understanding/ writing a petition/ a formal letter
  • Commenting on the latest events/ news
  • Expressing indignation/ protesting/ complaining/ blaming
  • Expressing uncertainty
  • Internet generation/ new technologies
  • Warning someone
  • Describing an object/ a way of communication
  • Understanding an ad/ answering an ad
  • Colloquial expressions/ French sayings
  • Different registers/ French slang
  • Genuine spoken French
  • Expressing feelings and sensations
  • Writing a text message
  • Debating: politics, recycling, the environment, new technologies, social issues, consumerism and the media.

french culture croissantCultural content:

  • Business etiquette
  • Songs in French
  • French poetry/ literature
  • Gender equality
  • French explorers
  • Main cultural events in France: Fête de la musique, la Nuit Blanche, le Printemps des poètes, les journées du patrimoine etc
  • French cinema (films, directors, actors and Cannes Festival))
  • Political life in France.

skills workSkills Work:

  • Lots of speaking/debating
  • Lots of listening
  • Understanding different accents
  • Producing various styles of written and spoken French
grammarGrammar:
  • Indirect pronouns “y” and “en” (revision)
  • Expressing time connection: structures “avant de + infinitive” & “après + past infinitive“
  • Past reported speech
  • Hypothesizing about past events with the structures “ si + pluperfect”/ past conditional
  • Expressing a regret using “ regretter de” + past infinitive/ “j’aurais amé/ voulu” + infinitive
  • Subjunctive to express a necessity
  • Subjunctive vs indicative
  • Time connectors
  • Double pronouns order
  • Expressing an opinion, doubt, will, feeling, probability, possibility
  • Expressing a contrast (ex: par contre, alors que, d’un côté, de l’autre côté etc)
  • Expressing a cause/ consequence
  • Present participle
  • « Pour »+ past infinitive
  • Past conditional
  • Expressing a concession (ex: « bien que » + subjunctive)
  • Expressing an opposition (ex : cependant, pourtant)
  • Expressing a judgement by using the subjunctive
  • Impersonal forms + subjunctive/ infinitive
  • Interrogative pronouns
  • Complex relative pronouns (ex: avec eux, pour lesquels etc)
  • Possessive pronouns.

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.