Bilingual French with a Linguist

This class follows a bilingual methodology where the Mother Tongue of the student (English) is used as a basis of understanding of the concepts to be learned in the Target Language (French).  English serves not only as an aid to instruction, but also as a guide.  As French becomes comprehensible, the student is weaned off of English and French becomes the dominant language of instruction, but English will be referred to inasmuch as it works as a tool for understanding.  

The class goes through four stages: sounds > words > sentences > media

In the first stage the student will learn how to articulate each sounds of the French language in order to be able to produce French that is intelligible and pleasant to the French ear.

In the second stage the student will apply the sounds to get a strong basis in French orthography, morphology and prosody (spelling rules and prefixes, suffixes and intonation patterns).

In the third stage, the student will begin to apply those words into grammatical and syntactic environments and begin producing intelligible speech.  Here the student will also begin to read selections from Bandes Dessinées (Comic Books) in order to become familiar with productive grammatical and syntactic constructions.

In the final stage, the student will begin to read for homework and class time will be dedicated to discussion and review of concepts.

Grammar is not taught through complex grammatical jargon, but in reference to English function.  For example, the imperfect (l'imparfait) is not introduced as a "tense", but as how one says "I was ___ing" or "I used to ___..." or "I ___-ed for five years".  These grammatical phenomena are carefully introduced in an optimally salient order.

In the third stage, grammar is taught comparatively and deductively using semi-communicative exercises.  That is to say, grammar concepts are instructed and then using prior mastered skills, the student will be prompted to articulate novel phrases.  Each utterance is analyzed in terms of pronunciation, grammar, syntax and fluency.  Error handling follows a stage of specific praise, followed by either Socratic questioning or explicit instruction as the situation necessitates.