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S.87-45

S!MON FRASER UNIVERSITY

MEMORANDUM

SUBJECT: Faculty of Arts

DATE: ?

Nov.19, 1987

French

Reference: SCUS 87-26; SCAP 87-17

Action undertaken by the Senate Committee on Academic Planning/Senate

Committee on Undergraduate Studies gives rise to the following motion:

MOTION: "That Senate approve and recommend approval to

the Board of Governors, as set forth in S.87-45

the following new course:

FREN 216-3 French for Immersion Program

Students"

?

SENATE ? 

MI'ITEE ON URAJATE STUDIES 

NEW DURSE PROPOSAL FORM 

1. Calendar Infoition:     

-

Depa.rthent: 

FRENCH 

Abbreviation Code: 

FREN 

?

Course Nther: 

216

?

Credit Hou.rs:   

?

Vector: 

1

- 3 -- 0 

Title of Course: 

FRENCH FOR IMMERSION PROGRAM STUDENTS 

Calendar Description of Course: 

A course designed to answer the specific needs of French Immersion Program graduates. 

Emphasis will be placed upon the development of self-monitoring techniques to improve 

correctness in the use of the oral and written codes of French. 

Nate of Course: 

lecture-tutorial 

Prerequisities 

Restricted to students 

(or special 

entering 

instructions): 

SFU fromncersion 

h1

programs. Prior permission 

of chairman is required. May be taken in conjunction with other French language courses. 

May not be taken as part of the French Certificate program. Does not constitute a course 

What course (courses), if any, is being dropped fran the calendar if this course 

is app 

roved: ? 

challenge to any French 

Ni]. ? 

language courses. 

2.

Scheduling: 

How frequently will the course be offered? 

Fall each year 

semester in which the course will first be offered? 

Fall 1988 

Which of your 

ible' 

?

present faculty would be available to 

'

make the proposed offering 

POSS ? 

B. Bartlett, M. McDonald, J. Luu-Nguyen 

3.

Objectives of the Course: 

See attached 

4.

Budgetary and Space Requirements (for information only) 

What additional resources will be required in the following areas: 

Faculty ? 

1)

3

base units for the participation of a francophoneTA/LI 

2) S.I. stipend for faculty replacement 

Staff 

Library ? 

Audio Visual 

Space 

Equipment 

Preparation and updating of diagnostic and material (tapes & textual material). 

(A summer work program or 

g

raduate TA will need to be involved 

initi11Y)

APPVAIJ

' ?

'.". ..'

Date: ? 

,

?

'

7

?

Department thaiin 

?

Dean 

?

thairri.n, SCUS 

SCUS 73-34b: (When ccxnpleting this form, for instructions see memorandum SQJS 73-34a. 

Attach course outline) 

French Immersion Program students exhibit a high degree of communicative

competence but make persistent and frequent oral and written errors that

often differ from the errors both of native French speakers and of other

anglophone learners of French. It has been suggested that once learners "make

themselves understood to their teachers and classmates. . . there is no social

incentive to develop further towards native speaker norms." (B. Harley and M.

Swain, An analysis of the verb system used by young learners of French,

Interlanguage Studies, 1978, 3, p.38.)

The purpose of this course is first to re-establish the social necessity of

speaking and writing as correctly as possible and then, after identifying the

major persistent errors in the students' usage, to furnish students with a

monitoring capacity enabling them to recognize/correct and foresee/avoid

their own individual performance errors.

At present, immersion Program students entering SFU may - after placement

test - enter the French Division lower language courses (where they will

generally find themselves with B.C. "core" program graduates), French

Division upper level courses (where they could find themselves with -

amongst others - native French speakers) or possibly the Education in French

courses (i.e. in other departments - where they presumably mix with a

majority of native speakers). In none of these instances are the immersion

students in an ideal situation since current thinking favours "sheltered"

courses for such students - i.e. special closed courses that recognize the

students' still imperfect control of French. Although the hope has been

expressed that "French language departments will begin to respond to the

needs of this new clientele with specialized advanced language courses for

non-majors in areas such as academic writing, grammar, and franco-Canadian

literature." ('What can the Universities offer to the bilingual student'?'

Marjorie Bingham Wesche, Canadian Modern Language Review, 1985, 41, 5,

p.957.) no real attempt appears to have been made to address this imperfect

control by providing a

s/ie/terectourscto

address the specific problems. Even

our (so far) limited experience with this new type of student indicates the

need, for a sheltered offering that will help bridge the

move

between the

highly sheltered school program and the less protected environment of SFU

offerings in French (be they 1n

the French Division or elsewhere in the

University).

Objectives of the course

To re-establish the socio-cultural necessity of speaking and writing

French within norms acceptable to francophone communities and with an

awareness of the appropriateness of register.

To identify the major ingrained oral and written errors persistently

committed by French Immersion Program students.

To furnish students with the means to monitor their own

performance and to recognize/correct, foresee/avoid these errors.

To help the students to establish habits of vocabulary-building to

control and reduce the paraphrastic techniques widely adopted.

iiii1!I4II

The semester will be divided in overall terms into periods of

identification and elaboration and practice of controls. This division will

also characterize the weekly use of time.

Identification

Students will be required to record short tasks designed to force a

specific linguistic behaviour; they will also be required to perform written

tasks designed to produce specific responses.

Control

Control will depend on two two approaches - the cognitive and the

behaviourist. At least one hour per week in the initial weeks will be spent on

the study of language as code and will deal with such topics as redundancy,

marking, economy, the need to understand the different organization of the

oral and written codes of French. Explanations of the need for the principle of

redundancy (for example) will establish the basis upon which to elaborate a

means of monitoring its application to the written code and then to the oral

code.

• ?

The understanding of what an error Is and the ability to identify it will

be followed by structural exercises - oral and written - of the classic

behaviorist models, but using partially encoded forms as the starting point

upon which the final encoding of the acceptable utterance/written form is

performed. Where deemed necessary, some of this repetitive work will be

transferred to the language laboratory.

The 'cognitive approach will require the introduction of some of the

basic concepts of linguistics as well as a minimal control the the IPA. The

concept of language as code and the explanation of the principles of code will

entail the introduction of a simple generative-transformational model which

will furnish the abstract partially encoded forms upon which the correct

utterances will be based.

an ongoing participation in the identification/control process,

cumulative testing,

final oral/written test for a global view of

achievement

IMFORIF1

J,Dubois, R.Lagane, A. Mareull, La nouvelle grammaire de base oour le

secondaire, Les Editions Francaises, inc.

Le Nouveau Bescherelle, 3. La grammaire Dour tous. Hatier.