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Study Guidelines

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Study Suggestions for FREN 2200/FRAN 2050

Success in FREN 2200/FRAN 2050 depends primarily on how you organize your time and structure your activities.  Students who do well have worked out effective study procedures and habits.  Students who do not do well usually fail to do something important.  The following suggestions will help you focus on those procedures that have proved to be effective in FREN 2200/FRAN 2050.

  1. You will need to spend a minimum of two hours preparing for each hour in class (see Course Load in UNC Charlotte Catalog).  It’s not a good idea to do all the work in one sitting.  Break up the two hours into shorter sessions so you can focus and retain what you study.  Studies have shown that you retain the most material by studying in 30-minute sessions spread out throughout the day and right before going to sleep.  It may take you longer than two hours to learn the material, especially if it’s been awhile since your last French course.  Your job is to spend the amount of time it takes you to learn the material.
  2. Attend all classes and arrive on time (3 lates will count as 1 absence in calculating your class grade).  While you are in class, be ready to work.  If you have any questions or problems, contact your instructor right away.  If you wait until just before tests or other deadlines, it will often be too late.
  3. Begin the study of each lesson by checking the online syllabus for assignments and the class web page for pertinent material.  The latest revision date of the online syllabus is indicated in the top heading, so if you print out the syllabus, always make sure you have a printout of the latest version.  Assignments are due by class-time on the day under which they appear on the syllabus.  Even if you miss class, you may turn in assignments as an email attachment.  No late homework is accepted since answer keys are made available after class.  Make sure to start assignments early enough so that if you have problems with your computer, you can complete your assignment(s) before class time at one of the campus computer labs open 24/7.  All assignments relate to the class grammar text Reading French in the Arts and Sciences unless otherwise indicated (i.e., exercises relating to the other text in the course will have Panaché littéraire indicated in the assignment on the syllabus; we don’t start using this text until about the fifth week of class).  All exercises and tests in Reading French in the Arts and Sciences are to be submitted before class over Canvas (see Homework, below).  All underlined items on the syllabus are links to various class materials which you must print out, complete, and bring to class on the days they are due.
  4. General guidelines for turning in grammar homework assignments: 1) at home or on campus, study grammar for the chapter in Stack grammar book, using the chapter’s grammar review sheet (print out from Class Notes) to take notes; complete and turn in chapter exercises over Canvas before the class period covering that grammar; 2) in class, cover questions and check random grammar points on grammar review sheet, check random items from exercises, and sight-read excerpted materials in Stack grammar book; 3) after class, complete and turn in test on the chapter’s grammar over Canvas before the following class.Remember, should you have any problems with Canvas not working correctly, you must contact Canvas Student Support, NOT the professor, by contacting the Student Computing Help Center (see http://labs.uncc.edu/gethelp/help.html).  Do not contact the professor for help, for she only has control over her own web pages. Canvas Support, not the professor, maintains Canvas.  Please report your problems immediately, for if you don’t, you will continue to have them, and I will not excuse late or missed work for unreported problems.The exercises for chapters 1-17 in the Stack grammar book listed on the syllabus are to be completed and submitted over Canvas before class (see Canvas links Getting Started with Canvas for Students https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-2036 and Canvas Student Guide https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-4121).  It’s not necessary to look up all the words you don’t know in a dictionary, because the Canvas exercises indicate if your answers are right.  You must submit at least one version of each chapter’s set of exercises with all answers filled in to get credit for doing each set of exercises.  The content of these exercises is not graded by the professor, and since Canvas may not correctly grade them (e.g., it won’t recognize misspelled words, answers with punctuation, etc.), you should ignore whatever grade Canvas assigns to these exercises.  Use the answer key to determine if your answers are correct or contain errors, and if you are unsure about any answer, email the professor for help in determining if your answer is correct or not.  You may repeat these exercises as often as you like, both before the due date and throughout the semester.  Your exercise grade for the course will be computed based simply on the number of them you complete by the due date (e.g., if there are 10 exercises and you complete all 10 before each one’s due date, your exercise grade is 100; if you complete 9 out of 10, the grade is 90, etc.). The tests for chapters 1-17 in the Stack grammar book are to be completed and submitted over Canvas after covering the grammar in class but before the following class period.  You may repeat these tests as often as you like, both before the due date and throughout the semester. Canvas will partially grade the tests and the professor will complete grading them after the due date for each test, so don’t pay attention to the initial grade assigned by Canvas.  If you’ve done a test multiple times before the due date, the one with the highest Canvas grade will be chosen by the professor to finish grading.  Your test grade for the course will be computed based on the average of the grades computed by the professor for each test.The Translation assignments are taken from the Stack textbook.  These are usually excerpts from various texts in the Arts and Sciences which you will translate using a dictionary and the reference materials from the course.  The translation does not have to parallel the sophisticated style of the original, but you must use good standard conversational English.  Do not produce a translation which sounds like French; i.e., do not be overly influenced by the French so that you, for example, retain French sentence structure or use close cognates when another word in English would make for better-sounding English.  There are usually several phrases in each text that you will have to find equivalent expressions in English for, that if you translate literally will sound foolish or nonsensical.  To make sure you’ve come up with a good English translation, always read it out loud.The Guided Reading and Translation assignments are worksheets you must download from the links on the syllabus and complete before class.  You may complete them on the computer and then print them out or print them out first and complete them by hand, but you must bring these worksheets to class as we will correct parts of them in class.  The exercises on these worksheets should be done without a dictionary, except when otherwise indicated on the sheet, for example, in the case of the translations at the end.  Please staple multiple sheets and put your name and the date on them before class.  If you hand in homework or class exercises on notebook paper, please do not use paper from a spiral-bound notebook, or be sure to remove any tabs from the left margin.
  5. If it’s been awhile since your last French course, it may take you a few weeks to start feeling comfortable again with the grammar and vocabulary.  If you are having problems, consult the instructor to try and resolve them early on.  Use email or make an appointment to meet during office hours.  If you find you need additional help, the University Center for Academic Excellence (330 Fretwell http://ucae.uncc.edu/) provides free tutorials on French grammar (call Tutorial Services in 318K Fretwell at 704.687.7845 or contact them online through their website at http://ucae.uncc.edu/tutorial-services).  See also their FAQ at http://ucae.uncc.edu/tutorial-services/faqs.  The schedule for tutoring in the LRC is at http://lrc.uncc.edu/.  There are also many exercises you can do using the computer software in the Language Resource Center.