France

French 53B is the second part of the three-part 53ABC intensive advanced beginning conversation and grammar course sequence. The course immerses students in the French language and culture through daily class sessions and occasional instructor-led site visits. The 53ABC course sequence includes listening, speaking, reading, and writing with a focus on communication. Students have the opportunity to use everything they learn in class as they go about their daily activities. Students can expect to be able to talk about daily life, food, travelling, Paris, and a wide variety of activities. While students are learning how to speak the language, they continue their introduction to the culture of the French-speaking world. To immerse students in the language, only French is spoken in class. Although students are not expected to understand every word, they should try to follow the gist by paying attention to the context. Students find their comprehension increasing as the course progresses. The goal of the 53ABC course sequence is to help students develop the ability to communicate in spoken and written French. By the end of the course sequence, students should be able to understand the following at a level appropriate to a novice-high learner. Engage in short conversations with a sympathetic interlocutor in French, using simple sentences and basic vocabulary, with occasional use of past and future tenses, on familiar topics (such as the academic environment, family, food, and the home environment, habitual activities, memories, travelling and accommodations, facts and beliefs, opinions and emotions, health and illness, friendship, love and romance, etc.) and express their basic everyday needs. Use the present, and use occasionally the past, near future, and future, of high-frequency regular and irregular verbs, use reflexive verbs to talk about their daily routines, use reciprocal verbs, and use occasionally the imperative, conditional and subjunctive moods, as well as use subject, object, and relative pronouns, articles, prepositions, possessive and demonstrative adjectives, adverbs, interrogative expressions, negative expressions, idiomatic expressions, expressions of quantity, and time and weather expressions. Read, understand, and discuss short, non-complex, and highly predictable texts, for which there is contextual/extralinguistic support, on very familiar topics. Write with some accuracy on familiar topics in simple French, using the recombination of practiced vocabulary and structures to construct sentences. Understand basic French spoken by someone who is sympathetic to non-native and beginning students of French on familiar topics, using context and extralinguistic support to determine meaning. Reflect upon basic cultural differences as reflected in a variety of French and Francophone contexts, such as varying levels of familiarity/formality, etiquette, cuisine and dietary habits, family structures, commerce and the professional world, etc., as well as in cultural products such as film, performances, news, and music.

This course provides an overview of digital practices for translation and localization using open-source software. It covers localization and translation of software and documents. Topics include open-source software tutorials, creating and translating subtitles, group translation, and working on a synthesis.  

This course is a study of the history of Israel as seen through films. The course examines various angles of the socio-political reality displayed in both fiction and documentary films. From the early twentieth century in Palestine and onwards in Israel, mainly through Israeli cinema, a flourishing industry nowadays, as well as through foreign cinema, the course covers the main events that shaped and continue to shape the reality of this young state: the historical events that led to its foundation, the wars which drew its borders, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and its multi-cultural identity.

This course introduces basic notions for translating medical terms from French to English, beginning with documents for lay readers followed by documents for specialists. It provides practice in digital research techniques for both stages of the translation process: comprehension and reformulation. The course covers revision of stylistic issues as well as structural and language differences between French and English as they arise in the text studies.

This course introduces the theoretical and methodological approaches of Disability Studies, an expanding field that is not yet well enough known in France. It is organized in twelve themed sessions focusing on conceptual models used in studying disability, the history of legislative and social policy for impaired persons, and representations of disability in literature, the arts, and new media. The course offers a particularly worthwhile addition to the skillset of students preparing for careers in law, public administration, education, or social work.