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French
at Albion College
The
French program at Albion College allows students to learn the language
and culture of the French-speaking world.
Our 100 and 200-level courses focus on learning how to function
within a French-speaking environment, through appropriate language use
and cross-cultural understanding.
At the advanced level, we have broken down courses into two
levels: "intermediate advanced" and "advanced"
levels. This allows students to be placed in courses more suited to
their level of preparation – linguistically, interculturally and
cognitively.
The “intermediate advanced” courses are numbered 303–315,
and are designed to be taken before off-campus study in a
French-speaking program.
The “advanced” courses are numbered 351-355, and are designed
to be taken after off-campus study in a French-speaking program.
Our
upper-level courses are taught as "area studies" courses. In
our discipline, this means that the context of these courses is
interdisciplinary in scope, focusing on the culture of a particular area
or time period, of which literature is an important part.
Other components of these courses include the study of relevant
social issues, artistic movements, political change, religious
influences, and film studies.
In
addition, our upper-level offerings are multicultural in nature, with
France examined as a multicultural construct, rather than as a
monolithic unit.
Most notably is the course, Multicultural France: Current Issues
and Historical Perspectives, with changing French cultural landscape as
its primary focus. And even though France remains a very important area
of our program, we are offering more area studies courses on the
French-speaking world. These areas include West and Central Africa, Quebec, the French
Caribbean and French Louisiana.
Finally,
we have designed courses that directly prepare our students for
international careers in French, teaching them, communication skills
necessary in the French-speaking workplace, the important lessons of
history needed to understand contemporary issues, the complex questions
of identity important in the French-speaking world, to name a few of the
primary lessons students will learn. We have also designed a new course,
French for the Professions, whose central focus is preparing students to
function in a French-speaking work environment.
We have also incorporated information technology to various
degrees in all of our courses, but most specifically we have a course on
the French Web included in this proposal, Francophone Cultures on the
Internet: Fictionalité, Réalité,
Hypertextualité. To complete the students’ French program, we
have included a Senior Seminar that allows our students to reflect on
their learning, and to better identify competencies they have developed
as advanced French students, which along with other competencies
developed during their undergraduate studies, have prepared them for a
fulfilling and productive life after leaving Albion College.
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