Professor Kathryn Talarico

Office: 2S-110

Office Hours: Mon/Wed 9:30-10:00; 2:30-3:30; and by appointment

Telephone (Voice Mail): 718-982-3709

Essential Links for French 113:

E-Mail:  kathryn.talarico@csi.cuny.edu

Home Page for Professor Talarico: http://scholar.library.csi.cuny.edu/~talarico/
(The home page contains links to French sites, course information, "Objectives," for each level of French language courses, activities geared to language courses as well as this syllabus.)

Modern Language Media Center Home Page: http://www.ml.csi.cuny.edu/lab
(This is the website that you will use in the lab as a starting point for all your web-based activities.)

Quia Electronic Workbook/Lab Manual Website: http://books.quia.com
You will be using an on-line electronic workbook for this class: Quia. Instructions for registering will be distributed in class. You need a "Book Key" to register for the course. It will be given to you in class. Note: If you purchased a used textbook, you need to purchase a book key separately. Book keys are valid for the duration of the three French classes (113, 114, 213).

French in Action video website: http://learner.org
This is the Annenberg site with a link to the French in Action video series. You will receive exercises to do that correspond to the lessons in Allons-y! We cover the first eight of the fifty-two lessons in the series in French 113.

Objectives of the Course and Student Responsibilities:

Welcome to French 113! The teaching staff for French includes the following people, who are all here to help you succeed in your learning experience:

Professor Kathryn Talarico, Professor of French

Professor Noëlle Rouxel-Cubberly, Instructor of French

Ms. Nicole Fennimore

Ms. Solmaz Lee

In addition to the full-time teaching staff, there are tutors for French in the Media Center, and computer specialists who can help you in navigating around the web, using the special programs for French, and learning how to use the International Keyboard so that you can type accents easily on any computer.

The teaching staff is here not just to guide you in learning the mechanics of French, but to contribute to your understanding of a new culture, in all its various aspects and facets. You can come in to see any of us about your classes and to discuss the French minor (12 credits at the 200-level and above), the French Club and Conversation Table, suggest extra-curricular activities that would be of interest to students learning French, or just about anything else. We are here; we are available; and we are happy to talk to all of you!

A separate handout is attached to this syllabus and sets out in detail what is expected of you (and what you can expect) during the course of the semester. The Course Objectives can also be accessed from my home page by clicking on Objectives for French Courses. You should consider it, along with this syllabus and the homework page, as your "contract" with your instructor and read it carefully. It will be discussed in class on the first day.

Students are required to prepare their work for each class ahead of time. Our class time together is limited, so the drills in the mechanics of grammar and pronunciation are your responsibility in the lab and at home. Language learning can be a lot of fun as well as a lot of work. Students must come to class with their textbook for each class session!

How do students become good language learners?

Your instructors will help you all become good language learners. This is one of the specific objectives of French 113 in particular: to set you on the right road to understanding how to become a successful language learner. Unlike other disciplines, a foreign language is not a subject you can "cram for" the night before an exam. You need to work on your language skills each and every day--even if it's just a half hour or 45 minutes.

What should you be doing specifically when you study?
1) Listen to the CD: Each of the conversations in the chapters is recorded. You can follow along in the textbook as you listen. Practice saying the words/expressions in bold print since they form part of the required vocabulary.
2) Read the textbook and study the vocabulary. Write out the new vocabulary; write out each of the new verb conjugations at least five times so that the spelling and abbreviations become natural. In addition, all the vocabulary for each chapter (as listed in the Lexique at the end of each chapter) has been recorded and is accessible from the lab website.
3) Do all written and listening assignments from the Workbook (online) and textbook.
4) Go to the lab to do supplementary exercises and activities. Seek help from the French tutors.
5) Don't wait until it's time to do the final project at the end of the semester to "discover" the lab and what you could have done. In the final capstone project, Une Visite - éclair à Paris, one component of the written report (in English) is a "self-evaluation" section where students are asked, If you could do this course over again, what would you do differently? Many students say that if they could do the course over again they would spend more time doing their written and oral work and that they would most certainly spend more time in the lab getting tutoring and working on the supplemental materials. Don't be sorry about what "might have been." Get to know the lab and the resources there and use them consistently from the very beginning of the semester.

It should be understood from the outset that there is quite a bit of studying and learning that is to go on outside the regularly scheduled class times. As with other courses, you should expect to spend a minimum of 2 hours studying for each in-class hour. That means a minimum of 8 hours per week of homework, studying, lab, etc., in order to keep up and do well. Of course, if you are having difficulty, you will need to put in extra time by studying with a partner, going for tutoring in the lab, or coming to see me. The hours when French tutors are available in the Modern Language Media Center (2S-114) are posted on the bulletin board outside the lab.

At the very beginning of the semester, you will have lots of assignments that send you to different web pages both on my own site, the lab, and elsewhere. This is not meant to confuse you but to get you accustomed to looking in a variety of places for material that can help you and that you can work on.

Required Textbook:

1) Allons-y! (textbook, and Student CD, 6th edition)

2) Your textbook will come with a "key card" for registering for the on-line workbook, Quia. Instructions will be provided for activating your key. If you drop the course during the regularly-scheduled add/drop period, you will not be able to receive a reimbursement for the Quia material. If you purchase a used textbook, you will need to purchase a separate Quia book key.
These materials are required for the course and are available at the CSI Bookstore. You will use these materials through French 213, the third course in the sequence of requirements.

Attendance Policy:

Instructors are required by New York State law to keep an official record of class attendance. Since much of your grade is based on your in-class performance (in addition to laboratory hours, homeworks, quizzes, etc.), any students absent in excess of 4 fifty-minute sessions will be assigned a grade of either WU (if the student disappears from the class before the mid-term exam) or an F (if there is work missing or performance is poor), at the discretion of the instructor.
You are expected to be in class and prepared for the day's work.
Absences can only lower your final grade. There are no extra rewards for being present in class and there is no "extra credit" work permitted. There are no "excused" absences: this includes trips, plane tickets, and Caribbean vacations! If you fall ill or have some emergency which prevents you from being in class on a regular basis, you need to either drop the course or get a medical withdrawal.

Lateness will be calculated accordingly: two latenesses equal one absence. Anyone who comes to class one hour late will be counted as absent for the entire class. No make-ups are permitted for either quizzes or homeworks. Quizzes are given at the beginning of class, so if you arrive late you can use the remaining time to take your quiz. If you are absent from the mid-term examination and request a make-up, you need to provide a doctor's note. Students who are absent from the final examination, and if they are doing passing work, will receive a final grade of I. A doctor's note is required for absence from the final examination as well.
Disabilities: Please discuss specific needs with me by the end of the first week of classes.
Religious observances: These must be approved during the first week of classes. (Halloween and Valentine's Day do not count!)

Failure to adhere to the above procedures will result in a grade of F.

Note on required work: Absence from class does NOT excuse you from any work that is due or exams given on the day of your return. You should make sure that you have the phone number and e-mail address of at least one other student in the class so that you can find out what was missed. You will note as well that you have my office phone and e-mail addresses. There is no excuse for coming to class and saying that you didn't know what was due!

Disabilities and Religious Observances: Please discuss specific needs with me by the end of the first week.

Cheating, Plagiarism, and Other Grim Things:

CUNY has a very strict policy concerning cheating and plagiarism, and we adhere to the rules in all our classes. The Media Center has copies of the full text, including policies for dealing with cheating and plagiarism. You can also link to it on the CUNY Website. You are expected to be familiar with the policies and procedures outlined in those documents.

The "short" version is the following: No instances of cheating or plagiarism will be tolerated. Students who are caught cheating or plagiarising will be automatically failed on the particular exam or assignment and may also receive a grade of F for the course. The CSI website with the CUNY policy includes the following: "Integrity is fundamental to the academic enterprise. It is violated by such acts as borrowing or purchasing assignments (including but not limited to term papers, essays, and reports) and other written assignments; using concealed notes or crib sheets during examinations; copying the work of others and submitting it as one's own; and misappropriating the knowledge of others. The sources from which one derives one's ideas, statements, terms, and data, including Internet sources, must be fully and specifically acknowledged in the appropriate form; failure to do so, intentionally or unintentionally, constitutes plagiarism. Violations of academic integrity may result in a lower grade or failure in a course and in disciplinary actions with penalties such as supension or dismissal from the College."

I will report any and all instances of cheating, suspected cheating, and plagiarism. The most rampant form of cheating these days is "cut and paste" plagiarism (copying) from the Internet. This is stealing. You must use your own ideas and words and acknowledge the source of your information.

No notes, cellphones, talking, walking out of the room will be allowed during any exam or quiz. All cellphones must be turned off at the beginning of each class session, whether there is an exam or quiz or not. In addition, you may not get up and leave and/or return at will. This is simple courtesy.

Grading and Assessing Your Work:

As you saw on the Course Objectives page, learning a foreign language will entail developing what is known as the "four skills" of listening/speaking, reading/writing. Listening and reading skills are "passive," that is, you are expected to understand what is either said or written. In the very beginning, you certainly won't understand everything, but with practice, you will learn to pick out and understand more and more information. Speaking and writing skills are "active," that is, you are expected to "produce" some form of communication in either oral or written form. Again, in the beginning, that may mean simply saying one or two words (Bonjour; Au revoir; Ça va, etc.) or simply copying words in French to understand how the accent marks work. Practice is important here as well, since it's the only way you will be able to train yourself to produce the proper sounds or write a coherent statement. You have a wide variety of materials (and people!) at your disposal to help you master these skills.

All the activities (in class, homework, lab work, exams, quizzes, etc.) work on developing and testing your mastery of these skills. The textbook, on-line workbook, and all quizzes and exams (oral and written), as well as the final project, emphasize developing the four skills.

Grades are based on the following:

Participation (attitude, preparedness, homework, having your book!) and Progress: 15%

Oral Work (oral quizzes, recording exercises, lab practice with Rosetta Stone and other resources, class oral work): 25%
Lab work: Certain assignments can only be done in the lab, such as recording exercises or work with special programs that are accessible in the lab only.

Written Work (short quizzes, chapter quizzes, homework, reports, compositions); 25%
1) Written homework will be collected at certain times.
2) Most of your homework will be done on the on-line Quia electronic workbook, so it will be "paperless." We will look at how Quia works in class so that you know about the due dates and setting up your accounts. Most of these exercises are self-correcting and you can check and re-do your work to practice those areas where you are making mistakes.
3) Short quizzes: These are 15-20 minute quizzes given approximately once a week, based on your homework (Quia and the textbook) and in-class activities. There are no surprises on these quizzes!

Mid-Term Exam: 10%

Final Exam: 15%

Final Project (oral presentation, written report, multimedia component): 10%

Note: All quizzes and exams (which contain oral listening comprehension components) are given at the beginning of class. You should arrive at class on time. No make-ups are permitted for either quizzes (or missed parts of quizzes) or missed homework assignments.

Department Grades:

95-100      A
90-94        A-
85-89        B+
80-84        B
75-79        B-
70-74        C+
63-69        C
51-62        D
0-50          F

While the grading scale appears more generous than students may be accustomed to, you should note that in our courses we do not give partial credit for instance, for verbs that are "partially correct," or missing accent marks. As such, there are lots of points that can be lost for mechanical mistakes. As you begin to learn a new language it's extremely important that you understand and master the mechanics. It will make your future work that much easier. In your writing and speaking (the "active skills"), you are encouraged to use what you know and what you have practiced. It's much safer and a lot less frustrating!

Important note:  No final grades are given to students either by e-mail or phone, so please do not ask.  Grades are posted on my door (2S-109) and are available on eSIMS. 

Computer Literacy and the Modern Language Media Center:
The Media Center of the Department of Modern Languages (2S-114) is a state-of-the-art facility designed to supplement class instruction. Students have at their disposal a wide variety of materials in various media (videos, CD's, audio tapes, etc.) to help them with their language learning. In addition to access to word-processing programs and the Internet (which are available on all CSI computers in the open-access labs around the campus), students have access to language-specific tools to aid in working on their writing, reading, and speaking skills and that are available in the Media Center only. It is a requirement of all students that they become familiar with the following during the course of the semester: E-mail (and attachments); Internet search and Internet research; word-processing (in addition to the use of MS-Word, language modules are available for spell-checks and grammar checks in individual languages); language-specific programs in the Media Center. The staff in the Media Center, as well as your instructors, will be available to help you and see that you get the training necessary to use these programs and materials.

Calendar of Lessons:

Note: All homework assignments can be found on the French 113 Homework pages I and II. New assignments will be posted there after each class session, sometimes in weekly increments.  You need to check the pages regularly. 

In French 113 we cover the Preliminary Chapter and Chapters 1 through 4. In general, we will cover the first three "étapes" of a lesson in detail. Homework assignments will be posted on the on the homework web page and shown in class at the beginning of each meeting.

The beginning of each new chapter gives you the website to check for self-correcting exercises, web assignments keyed to each of the chapters, and the sections of the Student CD-Rom to listen to. This material is required study material. In addition to the on-line Workbook exercises in Quia, you will be given specific assignments to do on the web using either the publisher's website, the Media Center's site, and my home page. The fourth part of each lesson, the "Point d'arrivée," contains activities, oral and written, that sum up what you have learned in the preceding parts of the chapter and "where you should be" at this particular point in mastering the material of any given lesson.