French

Contact Person: Whitney Smith
Office Location:Shields 203B
Direct Phone: 208-732-6844
Email: wsmith@csi.edu

The French program at CSI, composed of first- and second-year French courses, is designed to meet the needs of students who want to learn French, who want an introduction to France and its culture, or who want to earn Humanities credits within the General Education Core. These are introductory classes, but by the end of the second year, students will have acquired some oral and written competency beyond the basic-they will still be amazed at the speed of "real" French spoken by the French, but when they get to France, they will be comfortable with their own progress in France.

Across the span of the two-year program, students practice "real-life" situations by listening and imitating French, by thinking about their own lives and incorporating those situations and that vocabulary into French, and by reading French on the web and in books.

Language Department goals:

Faculty will

• provide a comprehensive, sequenced course of language instruction for the second-language learner;
• teach both expressive and receptive communication skills that enable the student to meaningfully participate in the activities of daily living within the second language context;
• provide a university parallel transfer program within the state of Idaho.

Students will

• initiate and sustain conversations in which they ask and answer questions, give and receive directions, introduce themselves, and report observations and information at a level appropriate to their language exposure and experience;
• demonstrate creativity in choosing alternate methods (for example, vocabulary, phrases, pantomime, or drawing) in social situations where their communication skills have not been effective;
• integrate various culturally appropriate behaviors into their conversations.