<p>I am considering contracting my French 102 course for honors credit, and I’m looking for some ideas for the course. So far I have three things: a 15 minute discussion weekly in French with my professor, reading an article from a French news site and responding to it (weekly) and keeping a journal written in French throughout the semester. To contract a course, a student needs to demonstrate at least 20 hours of honors level work above the required coursework. </p>
<p>One thing that must be remembered is that this is French 102, which is only the second class in the French department (Elementary French 2). Any suggestions?</p>
<p>15mn weekly discussion for 102 is way to ambitious - 5mn weekly is more likely (your side) = 10mn total. Perhaps 15mn total, including yours and your teacher’s contribution, but it’s going to be very hard for both you and the teacher!
Watching a French-speaking film every other week, and turning in a critique in English with the intro in French presenting the basics - where, when, who, starting point (in 102 you can’t yet write a paper about a film.) Perhaps you can include in your critique: 5 words I learned from the film, cultural differences I noticed, important cultural facts/behaviors/institutions that appeared in the film… Film + critique = 2hours of work, if you watch 2 films per month that’d be 14-16 hours right there, plus you’d have great cultural knowledge from it.
I’m sure your professor can suggest a variety of films.
If not, see if your local art house theater presents French films, if your library has some, research via imdb…
(BTW I don’t mean “watch an American film in French”, which is kind of pointless to learn about French speaking people and countries).
Some recent cool films: the Intouchables; le nom des autres; la pirogue; les femmes du 6e </p>
<p>Yes, the conversation time was definitely going to be professor and my speaking time combined; 10 minutes is probably a much more realistic goal!</p>
<p>Thanks for the movie suggestions, that sounds like a perfect idea!</p>