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Introduction

The Open University — Thu, 11 Feb 2021 14:39:02 GMT

Bonjour.

This two-week course offers you the opportunity to learn how to ask for directions. Starting with the basic vocabulary you’ll progress towards being able to say more and more, ask questions and understand replies. Little by little you will improve your ability to have more complex conversations and to understand more language in a variety of different scenarios.

Each week comprises 3–4 hours of interactive activities, explanations, exercises and tips about language learning. It’s a good idea to keep notes either in a notebook or on your preferred digital device; each week you’ll be encouraged to add to your own personal phrase book and decide how you can best go about memorising and practising key phrases and vocabulary. At the end of each week you will have a quiz to revise what you have been learning.

To start with, consider how you’ll organise your studies. Learning languages is a gradual process and, if possible, it is best to spread your 3–4 hours over the week, rather than studying the whole week’s work in one go. You then get the opportunity to revise vocabulary and language structures, to review quickly what you did last time and above all to practise and consolidate. For example, by listening several times to the same recording, you will learn vocabulary and perfect your accent for the speaking activities.

After completing this course, you will be able to:

ask for directions to key places in French-speaking towns
use the main prepositions of location
understand and give directions using a variety of phrases including devoir and il faut
pronounce un, une and the letters ‘h’ and ‘r’
use vocabulary to indicate the sequence of events.

Open Centre for Languages and Cultures

The Open University — Thu, 11 Feb 2021 14:39:02 GMT

This course has been developed from extract parts of LGXF003 - Beginners French 3: absolument!. The Open University has launched a dedicated learning centre called The Open Centre for Languages and Cultures. OpenLearn is supporting this project and is providing extracted units of all courses on The Open Centre in our dedicated Language and Cultures Hub.

The Open Centre for Languages and Cultures is the exciting new home for non-accredited language and intercultural communication short courses. You can study a wide range of language and language related subjects with us anywhere in the world, in any time zone, whatever your motivation – leisure, professional development or academic.

It’s the one stop shop for engaging with languages, professional communication and intercultural dialogue.

Our short courses allow us to be agile and responsive to the needs of learners who want to be part of a global society. We offer non-accredited short courses in a range of subjects including modern languages and languages for business and the workplace. We are also leading the way in developing short courses for academic research methods and pre-sessional English with IELTS, which will be available for registration in due course.

The Open Centre for Languages and Cultures is an international leader in online language learning and intercultural communications, built on our pioneering pedagogy and research.

What makes the Open Centre different?

The OU is the leader in online learning and teaching with a heritage of more than 50 years helping students achieve their learning ambitions.
The short courses are underpinned by academic rigour and designed by native speakers experienced in producing engaging materials for online learning of languages and cultures.
The graduating nature of the courses means that learners can build up their language and skills over time.
Learners will also gain a better understanding of the culture(s) associated with the language(s) they study enabling the development of intercultural communication skills.
Learners can mix and match the short courses and study more than one course at a time.

Once this course is complete you will be directed to OpenLearn’s hub for language content where you will be able to build on your newly found language skills.

Now that you’re fully prepared, it’s time to start on Week 1.

Bonnes études! (Enjoy your studies!)

Acknowledgements

The Open University — Thu, 11 Feb 2021 14:39:02 GMT

This free course was first published in February 2021.

Except for third party materials and otherwise stated (see terms and conditions), this content is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Licence.

The material acknowledged below and within the course is Proprietary and used under licence (not subject to Creative Commons Licence). Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following sources for permission to reproduce material in this free course:

Images

Course image: Image by maddieee from Pixabay

Every effort has been made to contact copyright owners. If any have been inadvertently overlooked, the publishers will be pleased to make the necessary arrangements at the first opportunity.

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