Spoken Contemporary French International Business - Novancia Program Spring 2017 Semester - Early Start - Paris

The core values of any culture are evident in the practices embraced by its people: the ensemble of heroes, symbols and rituals. Observing, analyzing and reflecting upon these practices, both in the context of intercultural studies as well as in introspection, provides the outside actor, in this case you, a conduit for understanding the core values proper to another culture and integrating them into your own values system. For you, the student abroad, such introspection is desirable in attaining intercultural competence as it allows you a means by which to acquire knowledge about the host culture which, in this case, is French culture.

Designed for the student having had a minimum of four semesters of university-level, French language instruction (CEFRL B1/B2), Spoken Contemporary French offers students a structured learning environment for a directed study of France and its inhabitants by way of the numerous celebrations, holidays and festivals that punctuate the French calendar year. Over the course of the semester, you will hone your intermediate-level competences in oral communication through an action-based, intercultural approach that will promote the favorable development of your whole personality and sense of identity in response to the enriching experience of otherness in both language and culture.

More concretely, you will select one of the many cultural, private, religious, political, athletic or civil celebrations that take place in France every year, or at least on a periodic basis, as a central theme of study for the semester. The action-oriented approach places you, the learner, as a social agent with a set of tasks to accomplish in a given set of circumstances, in a specific environment and within a particular field of action. You will therefore utilize your experience in Paris, France to establish relationships with different social groups in order to sharpen your linguistic, sociolinguistic and pragmatic communicative competences.

To this end you will engage in various language activities involving reception, production and interaction in the realm of oral communication and conversation.

All competences and activities will share a common goal: the creation and presentation of a research project on one, French celebration. This communicative, pedagogical task will implicate you in authentic, meaningful, pertinent and demanding communication. The successful completion of this task presupposes meaningful contribution of the student in the selection and management of the activity.