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2020/2021

First Foreign Language IV (French)

Code: 103712 ECTS Credits: 6
Degree Type Year Semester
2502904 Hotel Management OT 4 0
The proposed teaching and assessment methodology that appear in the guide may be subject to changes as a result of the restrictions to face-to-face class attendance imposed by the health authorities.

Contact

Name:
Yolande Juanola
Email:
Yolanda.Juanola@uab.cat

Use of Languages

Principal working language:
(fre)
Some groups entirely in English:
No
Some groups entirely in Catalan:
No
Some groups entirely in Spanish:
No

Prerequisites

There are no entry requirements but level A2 of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages is recommended.

 

Objectives and Contextualisation

Students acquire knowledge of the language and they develop communicative competences in oral and written interaction, being able to do the following at the end of the course.

  1. Express oneself correctly in pronunciation and intonation.
  2. Understand the meaning of medium-high level phrases and expressions with different language registers.
  3. Hold a conversation in the field of hotel and tourism.
  4. Understand announcements, complex messages and usual terms of expression in hotel and tourism management.
  5. Write more complex notes or texts in French in the professional field.
  6. Use exclusively French as a language of communication.
  7. React adequately to any situation in the professional field.
  8. Acquire broader geographical and cultural knowledge of France (related to the hotel treatment of the client).
  9. Select relevant information from an oral or written message for your own needs or to transmit them.
  10. Describe people, places and things accurately.
  11. Explain one's own experiences or relations to other people and experiences in the professional field.
  12. Acquire a level of comprehension and express oneself with a more precise grammatical, syntactic and lexical correction.
  13. Develop more elaborate strategies and skills to understand real written and oral texts.
  14. Develop the ability to function linguistically efficiently in the field of tourism and hotel.
  15. Continue developing strategies for independent learning outside the classroom.
  16. Use all kinds of material necessary for the most advanced learning of the language: dictionaries, grammars, textbooks, real documents of all the departments of the hotel.
  17. Use documentation to organize a professional or linguistic stay in France or in a French-speaking country.

 

 

Competences

  • Be able to self-evaluate knowledge acquired.
  • Communicate orally and in writing in a first, second and third foreign language in the areas of the hotel and catering industry and also in the different areas related to them.
  • Develop a capacity for independent learning.
  • Manage and organise time.
  • Manage communication techniques at all levels.
  • Manage techniques of internal and corporate communication in hotel and catering companies.
  • Work in teams.

Learning Outcomes

  1. Be able to self-evaluate knowledge acquired.
  2. Develop a capacity for independent learning.
  3. Identify the correct vocabulary and grammatical form to apply in the tourist sector in a first, second and third foreign language.
  4. Manage and organise time.
  5. Manage communication techniques at all levels.
  6. Produce discourses appropriate for different functions, means, activities and situations in the area of work.
  7. Use idiomatic peculiarities required in the tourist sector at intermediate and advanced level in a first, second and third foreign language.
  8. Use internet resources for tourism in a first, second and third foreign language.
  9. Work in teams.

Content

The linguistic content is subdivided in function of language, grammar, vocabulary and phonetic and prosodic content.

 

LINGUISTIC FUNCTIONS

 

Social function

  • Get in touch: specific forms of communication in the hotel work world.
  • Employ elaborate apologies appropriate to the situation. 
  • Express courtesy wishes addressed to clients.
  • Apologize more elaborately.
  • Order someone to carry out an action.
  •  Give advice to someone.
  • Use general courtesy formulas.
  • Ask permission or prohibit something.

 

Informative function

  • Create a dialogue at a reception with a higher level of precision and correction.
  • Make, modify and cancel a room reservation with all the details.
  • Narrate experiences in the personal and professional field which express your feelings.
  • Describe different types of hotels and professional functions.
  • Analyse different hotel services.
  • Prepare a personnel recruitment questionnaire.

 

Expressive function

  • Express interest.
  • Express an apology,
  • Express your gratitude.
  • React to opinions.
  • Express dissatisfaction with a job done wrong.
  • Express a physical ailment.

 

Inductive function

  • Ask more complex questions.
  • Formulate proposals.
  • Plan an activity.
  • Verify the feasibility of a specific action.
  • Formulate hypotheses.
  • Make a complaint.
  • Suggest or advise what to do or force someone to do something.
  • Offer to do something or refuse.
  • Reassure aperson.

 

Metalinguistic function

  • Request and provide clarification.
  • Ask a person what they said or what someone said.
  • Sort the vocabulary according to various criteria.
  • Create Word networks.

 

GRAMMATICAL CONTENTS

Students should be able to recognise and use the following grammatical structures properly:

  • Adjectives and demonstrative pronouns.
  • Adjectives and indefinite pronouns
  • Review of simple relative pronouns (qui, que, où) systematization of “dont”.
  • Relative compounds (duquel, auquel, desquels, ...)
  • Chronological indicators
  • Logical connectors
  • Review of pronouns CD, CI, en, Y, doublé pronoun
  • Prepositions
  • Review of the comparative
  • Review of the past tenses: Present perfect, imparfait
  • Past Perfect (plus-que-parfait)
  • Present perfect, imparfait, Past perfect  within the story
  • Review of the gerund / imperative
  • Present and past conditional (le conditionnel présent et passé) 
  • Presentation of the hypothetical system
    • si + présent + future
    • si + imparfait + conditionnel
    • si + plus que parfait + conditionnel passé
  • Introduction of the présent du subjonctif (je veux que, il faut que, J'aimerais que .....
  • The negation and restriction: ne ... plus, ni .... rien, ne ........ jamais, ne ........ personne, ne ...... que.
  • Sustained interrogative form
  • Expressions of the time (cela fait, depuis, il ya, etc.)
  • Expressions of opinion (je trouve que, je considère que,jesuis pour, je suis contre .....)
  • Introduction of a comment with verbs followed by the conjunction: que (avouer que, trouver que, avoir l’impression que + indicatif)
  • Introduction of the comment with adjectives followed by the conjunction: que(c'est étonnant que, c'est intéressant que, être surpris que + subjonctif)
  • Phrases in passive
  • Reported speech. (introductory verbs in present and past)
  • The subordinates phrases (the relative subordinates of time, goal, consequence, etc.)

 

Vocabulary

The vocabulary content of the fourth course comes from the following semantic fields: Daily experiences, sports activities, health and the French health system, travel (car rental, itineraries, etc.). The French education system, recruitment issues labour, banking, organization of the company. Architecture, hotel: departments, functions, personnel, employment rate, type of clientele, etc. Hotel equipment and tourist geography. Uses and customs of the different nationalities.

 

Phonetic and prosodic content

Students must recognise and appropriately use the prosodic features (intonation, rhythm, etc.) of the language. The pronunciation should be clear enough for a native to understand without effort.

They must also speak more fluently and improve the degree of correction in pronunciation.

  • Review the main difficulties
  • Discrimination of all vowels
  • Production of one  [Y] opposite to [ i ] and [u]
  • The nasal vowels [Ĕ] [õ] [ă]
  • The consonants [f] [v] [s] [z]
  • Phonic units: more frequent and relevant "liaison" phenomena.
  • Relate phonetics and spelling: S, Z, SS, TI

Methodology

The methodology is basically interactive. Students have to put into practice their language knowledge in order to fulfil a series of tasks (spoken and written) in both a general context and in the field of hospitality. In other words, the emphasis is on the learning process rather than master classes by the teaching staff. 

Activities

Title Hours ECTS Learning Outcomes
Type: Directed      
Classroom based 56.5 2.26 7, 6, 5, 3, 9, 8
Non-classroom based 56 2.24 7, 2, 6, 5, 3, 1, 8
Type: Supervised      
On line 5 0.2 1
Tutorials classroom based 3 0.12 1
Type: Autonomous      
Activities 10 0.4 7, 2, 6, 5, 3, 1, 8
Theory 10 0.4 7, 2, 6, 5, 3, 1, 8

Assessment

Continuous assessment

 Students must have attended at least 80% of their classes in order to be included in the continuous assessment process.

 Continuous assessment activities

 Writing activities. Between two and five writing activities are performed. Students may be asked to rewrite their texts to improve on the first version.

 Portfolio. The portfolio contains between six and eight activities, covering the four language skills. These may be done at home or in class.

 The following are examples of these activities:

Reading worksheets
Transformation exercises
Mini-tests
Self-assessment sheets
Information search
Production of documents

 The days allocated to mid-course exams can be used to work on portfolio activities, such as the listening and reading mini‑tests.

Speaking activities. Over the year, between one and two speaking activities will be conducted. These may be individual or group activities, and may take place in the classroom or be recorded and sent in. Depending on the level and the number of students in the class, they could be monologues, dialogues, presentations, etc.

Mid-course tests. One or more mid-course tests are held on the days set aside for this purpose, consisting of a writing test (one or two tasks) and/or a speaking test. These tests are in the same format as the final exam.

Attitude and participation. Students' degree of effort, attitude, and participation are assessed.

Final continuous assessment test: writing and speaking. This test is on the same day as the final exam.

 To pass the course an overall mark of 60% must be obtained (activities plusfinal test.)

Final exam

Students who have failed or not taken the continuous assessment are entitled to take a final exam that tests the four language skills. In order to pass the exam, and therefore the course itself, a minimum mark of 50% must be obtained in each skill (each part of the exam) and a minimum 60% overall.

 Exam resits

 Students with an average score between 3.5 and 4.999 in the final exam are entitled to a resit.

 Resits involve retaking the parts of the exam on which their scores were below the overall average mark. In other words, the skills in which they obtained scores below 60%.

 Changing the exam date

 Students who cannot take the exam on the set dates due to health, work (trips or other similar obligations) or on compassionate grounds may ask their teacher for a change of date, supplying any necessary documents, and giving notice of at least seven calendar days except in extreme cases such as accidents. If the request is accepted, the exams must still be taken within the period set by the School of Tourism and Hotel Management.

 Further points regarding assessment

 Students who have passed the continuous assessment may not, under any circumstances, take the final exam in order to obtain a higher grade. 

 No level certificates of any kind are issued.

 

Assessment Activities

Title Weighting Hours ECTS Learning Outcomes
speaking activities 5% 0.5 0.02 7, 2, 6, 5, 4, 3, 1, 9, 8
Attitude and participation 10% 0 0 7, 2, 6, 5, 4, 3, 1, 8
Final exam 40% 1.5 0.06 7, 5, 3, 8
Mid-cours tests 10% 1 0.04 7, 6, 5, 3, 8
Portfolio 20% 5 0.2 7, 2, 6, 5, 4, 3, 1, 8
Writing activities 15% 1.5 0.06 7, 2, 6, 5, 4, 3, 1, 8

Bibliography

 Essential bibliography:

  • Textbook
    • (recommended at the beginning of the course).
    • Grammar exercise book: Grammaire Progressive du Français avec 680 exercices (nouvelle version). Niveau intermédiaire. CLE International. (Used in first, second and third year).
  • Dossier with texts, exercises, ideas for classroom work and homework, which students must print and bring to class.
  • Online multimedia learning materials and Websites (see the Online Campus).

 

Supplementary Bibliograpy

  • LE ROBERT:  Dictionnaire de la langue française.
  • BESCHERELLE (1991): L’art de conjuguer.
  • GOLIOT-LÉTÉ, A. & MIQUEL, Claire (2011): Vocabulaire Progressif du Français- Niveau Intermédiaire (Livre + CD), Paris, CLE International.