French

Meeting at 8:30 on Wednesday. More advanced students are encouraged to come around 9:00. We'll break around 10. We'll start our first class on 6/24.

A bit of background on me:

I lived in both France and Quebec for about 10 years. I learned to speak French while living in both places, so the French I'll be teaching is very much how people talk. Also, because I learned French by hearing and speaking it, my French writing skills are craptastic, so I am planning to focus more on conversational French. If someone else is a wiz at writing French, speak up!

If you could write down your name and your level of French below that would be really helpful.

-- Laura

Resources:

Ma France -- BBC French Language learning series we'll be using

French Lessons -- Greater focus on traditional learning with a heavier emphasis on grammar

Beginners

• Mitch I can sorta order food in French.
• dpc i lived in france for about a year, during which i learned enough french to be a danger to myself.

Intermediate

• Noah - interested, but probably won't make it on many Wednesdays for a while - I can get around ok in French, but would need a lot of practice to become fluent
• Billy - i've been out of practice since high school.
• Jeremy I can have simple conversations. I have one year of college French, plus several years of Spanish and three minus epsilon degrees in Linguistics, which makes me a good faker. I also have motivation: big fan of Franco-Belgian comics, and my wife is a native Francophone.

• Eve - sorry to miss first class, will try to come next time. My French is second-rate, I read fairly well but would like to understand spoken French faster. 3-4 years in school; French relatives; but I become very rusty in between trips.

• aestetix - five years of french in middle/high school, been to France several times, etc. Strong understanding of grammatical structure, although I haven't touched it in years and am quite rusty.

Advanced

• your name here

Class One Agenda: 6/24

I. Housekeeping

- Discover everyone's level of French

- Determine what people want to be able to do with French

- Do we want to incorporate French culture at all?

- Are there any advanced students that would like to focus on French books/reading?

II. Lesson One

- Talk the way 'they' do: Greetings and Introductions

- A little grammar: To be 'être' and to have 'avoir'

- Cross cultural Minute: Why the French are rude

- Slang/swearing/etc.