french (1 Viewer)

[les coccinelles]

reading reviews on here it seems that french at usyd is crap which is really disappointing... ive done french ext and i have been really excited to study french at usyd, but now i dont know. can people give me their reviews of french, with the positives and negatives, please??

 

[jaimebien]

http://community.boredofstudies.org/221/faculty-arts/117830/frnc1631-1632-crap-course.html

This thread pretty much sums up how I feel about French at USYD. I wish I'd read it before I suffered through one semester of the unit.

The main problem that I personally found with the way the unit was handled is that people of disparate speaking and writing abilities are all put in the same level. I did French extension and French continuers at the HSC (got marks in the top bands), but at uni, I was up against other students who had spent months or even a year in a Francophone country. Naturally, I was disadvantaged.

If you have that advantage, then good for you, but it doesn't exactly cancel out what I found to be the biggest problem of all: the lecturers and tutors were just so soulless and lacking in passion. The French revolution is meant to be exciting, rousing! But no, I studied it in the driest possible way.

The other thing about the unit (and I hear it applies for most language courses at uni) is that there wasn't enough speaking time. You have to take it on yourself to find a speaking buddy (like a penpal, who talks) outside class if you don't want to fall behind in your fluency.

I only did the unit for one semester, and dropping it after that was one of the best things I've done at uni so far. All in all, I can't say that my fluency has improved significantly since Year 12. On the other hand, my fluency and depth of writing and knowledge in my essays for English and History have improved by leaps and bounds, certainly helped by the fact that my lecturers and tutors actually seem to care very much about what they teach.

 

[skut8]

Some lecturers weren't good. I found the first year lecturer to be largely unmotivated. Perhaps this was due to her having to teach 300 students who weren't all that serious in wanting to learn the language.

I managed to have great tutors and lecturers this year though. I haven't found one better than Roland Geldreich who really knows his stuff. Not exactly tops at teaching course material, but I'm not in the course for marks anyway.

First year is a complete bore, but later it picks up. Where do your interests lie? In learning the language or about France in general?

 

[les coccinelles]

Thanks heaps for your reviews! I'm more interested in improving the fluency of my French. I heard that you can practice your speaking skills at French club (or is this really lame?) Also, at uni, if the lectures are really boring, do students just go on with other work? Also, skut8, do you regret doing French?

 

[skut8]

If the lectures are boring people just don't go to them haha

If it's just improving fluency I suppose you don't have to do a major. Just pick up the French grammar courses. Since a major really is a major in French Studies. Ie you'll have to learn history and literature down the road. You might not like writing 2.5k essays on a French play.

And there is a club, they hold conversation sessions every day I think. I haven't been to one, but it seems to me people that do go do have better French. This could be because they learned French in school, but I wouldn't be surprised if they started at uni. Even better, you could just go to the conversation clubs and not learn French at all.

Generally no regrets. I've changed courses a coupla times, but I'm still going on with French. I find that those who do opt out of French either find something else they wanna do, or they were never really into it in the first place.

 

[les coccinelles]

thanks again. for french at uni, when teachers mark work, do they correct all grammatical mistakes, or do they just give you a mark at the end?

 

[shoxgeneration]

there is always the option of doing french @ UNSW if it suits what you want to do as a degree. If it doesn't, ignore my comment but from my experiences at UNSW it is actually useful and interesting and definitely far more useful than that at USYD compared to my friends who have studied it there.
If you want to know more, let me know.

 

[les coccinelles]

hmmm... that's interesting. people i know who are at unsw arts find usyd better and i always thought usyd is known for its arts department. also, i wasnt impressed with unsw on open day. im planning on doing comm/arts of comm(lib studies)

 

[shoxgeneration]

hmmm... that's interesting. people i know who are at unsw arts find usyd better and i always thought usyd is known for its arts department. also, i wasnt impressed with unsw on open day. im planning on doing comm/arts of comm(lib studies)

Yea, I was in practically the same boat as you - the century-old argument of USYD's renowned Arts department - pretty much a joke if you languages like french etc. I was going to go there too but ended up tossing it up and going to UNSW as I like you, was impressed by their Open Day. But speaking from experience, I don't know anyone who's done french specifically at USYD who has ultimately liked it and every one of them dropped it after a year/semester.
It's ultimately your choice of course, but just letting you know personal experiences in case it helps

 

[sandersen]

It's really not so bad. I am majoring in French along with some other kids - ever semester we roll our eyes and ask ourselves why the hell we are continuing.

1631 & 1632 are pretty awful, but they do kind of cover grammar fundamentals giving a base which is built on in senior years.

You then move on to 3621 & 3622 which are OK - not great but OK - about technology and "the world of work" with assessments that test speaking, reading, writing and comprehension. Particularly 3622 has been quite good with a lot of work on the "compte rendu" and "résumé de texte", which solidifies grammar and focuses on paraphrasing, expanding vocab etc. We also had to write a "lettre de motivation" and CV in the French style which will hopefully be useful in the future.

Christel was a pretty good lecturer and tutor - she was really nice and helpful although did have her favourites (of which i was not one!) who dominated the tutes. Roland too, although he was scary in lectures/tutes he was actually really nice outside when I approached him a little bit lost with our course material. Corinne was quite a good tutor too.

You can also do some of the options - a lot of them sound pretty crap though. Don't do the linguistics one unless you want to actually study linguistics in French. I have heard it is torture.

You are right - not that much time is dedicated to speaking, and it's mostly at the end of a 2 hour tute where you have been bored out of your brain because you didn't do the preparation so the teachers pets are going on and on. The person you are talking to feels the same way, so you usually end up speaking English. There is very little one on one time with the tutor. I have never been to a frenchsoc meeting apart from once at Le petit tarte, but i went with a friend and they were not welcoming at all so we left. It felt a bit insular... I don't really know what to do about that though I still don't get much French speaking practice and it is such an ordeal to try and force myself to participate properly in class because of the teachers pets never goddamn shutting up!

If you are really good you can get yourself assessed and start in 3621 instead of 1631 which would help you to skip all the really boring crap.

I guess the most important thing to say is I don't hate it most of the time. My French has definitely improved - my grammatical structures are much more complex and are much better than anything I could ever do before this year. My speaking is a bit neglected yes but that's my own fault. You have nothing to lose - if you like French then try it - if only as an easy junior subject to boost your marks overall.

 

[les coccinelles]

kk thanks heaps! i noticed that you also do political economy, which i'll do if i drop french. how do you find it?

 

[sandersen]

^ I did ecop 1001 which was pretty boring for me as I had already done micro and macroeconomic theory. A lot of repetition, which meant decent marks - can't complain.
If you are interested in Marx you will go well because Stilwell (the lecturer) is particularly interested in Marxian and neokeynesian theory - the main parts of my final exam were assessing our knowledge of those parts of the course.
I won't be continuing with it at any stage in the future - I thought sociology was more interesting, and applicable/useful, but if you are interested have a look at government subjects too because I have heard Govt is better.

 

[AshVonB]

I did French in my first semester and haaaaaated it. We had a great tutor for half the semester and then they bought in this other lady who was awful. She spent most of the time insulting students rather than teaching us french. There was this one girl in my class who had quiet a thick and broad aussie accent and found it hard to say some words, she just couldn't get the hang of the sound. So the teacher would always make a point of her and the fact that the girl was struggeling and was just plain nasty and snobby.

The lectures are very crowded and they mix levels together sometimes, so the high level french class would get all the examples and reply to the questions, where as the people in the lower levels didn't understand everything.

I ended up doing German the next semester and it was a million time better. Just the teachers and the fact they only did tutes in the begining, not lectures as well. It meant you could spend more time actually speaking the language.