French Beginner 2

If you can ask and answer simple questions about yourself and are ready to advance your conversation skills French Beginner 2 is the right choice. Add to your base of vocabulary and expressions in order to communicate in everyday situations involving travel, food, shopping, family, and business. Continue to improve your pronunciation and learn to talk about future plans and express past events.

This immersive course focuses on oral communication skills and uses meaningful scenarios (e.g., buying things in a store) to help you use the language in authentic situations. Practise your new French skills and interact with your classmates in a comfortable atmosphere. For extra practice between classes, you can access resources chosen by your instructor using our online system, Canvas.

By the end of the course, you’ll be able to:

• greet and introduce somebody
• ask information about people
• talk about oneself
• locate in space/describe home
• describe people physically and emotionally
• make future plans
• buy things in a store
• say what one can/wants/has to do
• describe habits and daily routine
• express past events

If you need to miss a class, French Beginner 2 is offered several times during the week, so you have the opportunity to make up your class on another day if necessary.

Course outline

This is not a prescriptive list. Exact course outlines are determined by the instructor to best meet the needs of the class. This is meant to serve as a guideline and suggest what may be covered at this level. It is often necessary to repeat levels in order to become completely comfortable with the skills at each stage with a different teacher and style.

Communicative Objectives

• greet and introduce somebody (review)
• ask information about people (review)
• talk about oneself (review)
• locate in space/describe home
• describe people physically and emotionally
• make future plans (future proche)
• buy things in a store
• say what one can/wants/has to do
• describe habits and daily routine
• express past events (Passé compose)

Linguistic Objectives

• review of present tense of regular –er verbs 
• conjugation of some irregular verbs (pouvoir, vouloir, devoir/aller/prendre)
• direct object pronouns 
• conditional sentences introduced by « if » in the present tense
• reflexive verbs
• expressions of time and duration (il y a, pendant, dans, etc.)
• passé composé with avoir
• future proche 
• more sophisticated questioning techniques
• imperative
• partitives (Introduction)
• phonetics

Expected Effort

You can expect to spend about three hours per week attending live, virtual classes and completing course work on your own time. Expect double this amount during the intensive summer term.

Textbook

This course does not require the purchase of a textbook. Course materials are provided by the instructor.

Course Format

This course is offered online and/or in-person. See Available Sessions for details on the course format.

Our online conversational courses offer a virtual classroom experience where you can see and interact with your teacher and classmates over Zoom. Log in at a set time to participate in individual, pair and group work, ask questions and receive feedback from your instructor.

Outside of class time, access course materials online at your own pace for up to three weeks after the course ends.

In-person classes are offered at UBC Robson Square in downtown Vancouver. 

Learn more about online learning at Extended Learning.

How am I assessed?

This is a non-credit course without letter or numerical grades. You receive verbal feedback on your conversation and grammar skills from your instructor during class. Written homework is typically corrected in class. Some lesson modules may include quizzes.

Record of completion

A record of completion will be emailed to students who participate and satisfy the course requirements within two weeks of the course end date. Course completion means 80% attendance and/or 80% completion of mandatory assignments.

Technology requirements

You’ll need a computer or tablet with a video camera and a microphone, access to the internet, an email account and an up-to-date web browser. The day before your course starts, you will receive an email with instructions on how to access the course.