French not good?

lilmizzme

The WORST college in France will give 10 TIMES better French education that the best university outside of France such as Trinity - that's what you all need to understand!
In my opinion the best place in the world to learn french is France. Why, you might ask. That's because you are exposed to French on a 24 hour basis. I'm no saying that's not challenging - it is, and you will find yourself longly at times.

Another thing if you want to study French but cannot emigrating to France (which are most Irish) the course in Trinity is your option.

Not being funny here Jimdw, but I dont think that was an entirely helpful post, nor did it answer anything that gaybitch asked. Of course, in an ideal world, if we wanted to learn a new language we'd go and live in the country for a few months and come back near fluent without hardly realising it. However, gaybitch is starting trinity next week, not a college "10 times worse" in france somewhere, so your post essentially isn't helping. Sorry, just had to say something!

Gaybitch, a good friend of mine started English/French TSM last year and absolutely loved it, and is spending her 2nd year in france to improve (this is where Jimdw post may pose some relevence!) She always had a huge interest in the language in school and worked hard at in college. I wouldn't let threads like this scare you or put you off the course. Everyone has there opinion on a course, and not everyone is particularly suited to what they're doing. It's a just a difference of opinion really. In fact, my friend actually enjoyed Frech more than she did English!
I'm starting TSM english next week too, may see you floating around some lectures!:D

duffman90210

I've a year of french in Trinity done, and can honestly say my standard has soared since leaving cert. The problem is not with the college staff, it's with students expecting to be spoon fed vocab and verbs a la leaving cert. If you keep semi-up to date with things, you'll do great.

YogiBoy

lilmizzme wrote: »

if we wanted to learn a new language we'd go and live in the country for a few months

Bang on. I actually know a 23-year old, from Cork, who has done a French and German degree (in England). Her experience outside of England and Ireland is limited to 1 day in Calais and a few weeks in Spain. Never has been to Germany.

Come on... you do need to be responsible. If you want to learn French, go work the vendanges this week. Go back on every holiday.... Only you can do that work!

Brian

Jimdw wrote: »

And still your French will be to the level equivalent to English of foreigners we get in Ireland. That hurts doesn't it, I know.

Are you French?

gaybitch

duffman90210 wrote:

I've a year of french in Trinity done, and can honestly say my standard has soared since leaving cert. The problem is not with the college staff, it's with students expecting to be spoon fed vocab and verbs a la leaving cert.

That's really good to hear. Seems like the French side of things is just what you make of it!

lilmizzme wrote: »

I'm starting TSM english next week too, may see you floating around some lectures!:D

Woo!


And, with respect YogiBoy, I didn't actually ask about trying to learn French. I'm well aware that to learn a language, time in the country it's spoken is an asset! I was just wondering about English and French TSM and some things I'd heard about the Dept., and possibly some tips. I love France and it's a nice thing to "have" to go, one of the perks!

aine-maire

I'm thinking of doing Law with French...

And I've heard that a ridiculous amount of people drop to straight law. Is this because of the apparent incompetence of the French department?Is it something I should be worried about?

rc28

aine-maire wrote: »

I'm thinking of doing Law with French...

And I've heard that a ridiculous amount of people drop to straight law. Is this because of the apparent incompetence of the French department?Is it something I should be worried about?

I'm just starting pure law this week and, from what I've heard, people drop out of that course because they miss out on some law classes as a consequence of doing the french ones. That obviously puts them at a disadvantage to the pure law students.

gaybitch

I had my course meeting the other day, and I met two members of the dept. They seemed lovely, tbh.

YogiBoy

There are good threads that address law and languages
... these 2 are from a German perspective, but same considerations apply to French
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=303939
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=263430
Basically do what you are interested in. Law and French law will give you a more international degree... better e.g. for working in banking law as a "juriste". If you want to be a solicitor or barrister (and this where a minority of law students end up), then it might take a bit longer getting all the qualifying courses.
The impact of the considerations above on the Law and French Law degree is zilch.

stary eyed

hey was just wondering what people were thinking of French now? I read this thread after I accepted my place but before my lectures started and it did have me rather doubtful.. But so far I haven't found the French dept. to be anything near as disorganised/bizarre as the above posts have made it out to be... Any thoughts??

lucernarian

I heard from a couple of 2nd year French-in-TSM students of how the erasmus scheme was going to work for their year. In a word: shambles.

fiveone

Yes, you have to take a year out. That's the case with all TSMs though. Can't blame the French for that, however ridiculous it might be.

PurpleFistMixer

I don't think you HAVE to take a year out... I presume it would just be strongly encouraged for people doing languages.

lydonst

lydonst wrote: »

Yes, you have to take a year out. That's the case with all TSMs though. Can't blame the French for that, however ridiculous it might be.

Not true - it may be the case for all TSM language students but TSM students in general are not required to do an erasmus year.

duffman90210

Yeah, you don't HAVE to go abroad in your 3rd year or your 2nd year for that matter. Rather by the end of the four years, you have to have spent, in total, I think it's 6 months in an accepted french speaking country. I've spend 2 months in Dijon, and I'm going back somewhere in france this summer for 4 months, to fulfill the requirment.

tolosenc

I'm in SF French, not, however, TSM, but it's my understanding that there were only 6 Erasmus places made availible due to poor networking by the French Department. I have a friend who is in SF Spanish and her entire class could have gone abroad this year, but her other course wouldn't let her go for a whole year.

As duffman said, it's 6 months (not necissarily continuous) in France as the requirement.

stary eyed

As it happens my other TSM subject is Spanish.. so far they have been waaay more disorganised than the French dept (and considering everything I heard that really suprised me!) Yeah I read about the spending time abroad and credits and it all just confused me... in fact it still does confuse me..

YogiBoy

obl wrote: »

it's my understanding that there were only 6 Erasmus places made available

Not quite... maybe 6 Erasmus places to certain schools, I think. Anybody can go anywhere on Erasmus.. just it is easier when you are sure the host uni will take you, which is the case when a partnership is established. It is surprising, being SF, that this is not clear for you.

tolosenc

Were you in that class when they said what was said? I wasn't - but that's what my mate in the class said. Only 6 students could go this year.

languagenerd

Hey,

Bumping this thread because I saw it was on the main questions page and I don't think people who are looking to take up the course should decide based on information from five years ago

I'm in 2nd year French and I think it's become better now than the earlier posts. I think what you need to know when starting is that they very very rarely give grades over 70 (which is quite a step back from the 80/90% you get in school) but because of this grades from 60 up are considered to be very good. Look at it as if they are marking out of 70, not 100.

In first year, you have 4 language classes, 1 Contemporary France lecture and 2 hours of Literature. They've modernised the Literature a little bit (La Haine is a pretty good film) and there is a lot of choice on the exam paper so it is often possible to leave your least favourite out. There is the option to give up Literature from 2nd year on - Linguistics is great , not so keen on Ideas into Politics but it's not Literature anyway!

As for the department being disorganised - I don't think so anyway. We're always sent everything by email and given plenty of advance notice when forms or essays are due in. They're far more organised than my other subject's dept. I will accept that they can be strict/expect a lot of you, but if you're motivated, it does help you learn. If you engage with the course, you do learn lots.

Lecturers are all pretty good nowadays, mostly nice people too.

The residence abroad has been cut to 2mths but they are strict on it.

I wouldn't call it the perfect department - I wish we had more emphasis on language after first year!! - but I don't think it deserves all the harsh criticism it's got in this thread anymore.

p1akuw47h5r3it

shay_562 wrote: »

I'm also not hugely qualified to help, since I'm just finishing my first year of involvement with the department (I take it as an elective course within BESS), but my impression is that the department is pretty woeful at times - I think I actually speak French worse now than I did when I was sitting my leaving cert. From talking to other people, both in Business/French, European Studies and general French-related TSMs, this seems to be a fairly widespread opinion, although I've heard great things about the Italian and Russian departments.

the Russian department is excellent. I've only heard bad things about the french department. In saying that my tutor was in the french department, and while she was on maternity leave, another woman in the department (I think she was the head of the department). Both where excellent and very nice. So maybe it is just the course content as opposed to the staff themselves.

aas

I found French to be pretty awful and wouldn't recommend it to anyone. In the first week the difficulty ranged from being taught how to use a dictionary (through English) and being told that you had to have had En Attendant Godot read by the next two weeks (being advised never to refer to the English text for translation). Our tutorials were conducted by postgrads that often seemed clueless, as were many of our Texts lectures (many of which consisted of the speaker reading through a paper they had prepared for the whole 50 minutes, for example: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/18816947/En%20attendant%20Godot%20Lecture.doc )
That said, I dropped for it for English at Christmas so maybe someone can chime in on how semester 2 is going.

djcervi

I'm in TSM French also, so I guess I should give my opinion on French in Trinity. To be fair to them, its administration a fairly well organised Department (in comparison to others) in terms of assessment structure. Its literature and linguistics courses can be enjoyable, provided you choose the options that suit you. After first year, this is possible.

However, they are by no means perfect. I'll give you my two cents.

Language: The way French language is taught needs to be totally revised, in my opinion. In SF, you only have really two classes of language (1 written language class and 1 oral class- as opposed to 2 written language classes and one oral class in JF). There are three (in SF), if you include the grammar lecture that very few students go to:o. The problem with the lecture is that it is too passive. You are merely shown grammatical structures, with about ten examples as to how they are used. Surely this can be consulted in a good grammar book, should the need arise. To be honest, teaching grammar in a lecture theatre is not the best for grammar work. Ideally grammar should be taught in small groups, where people can ask questions and the teacher can pause easily to allow people to do grammar exercises. If they really wanted to improve language acquisition, it would be great if all three written language classes were small tutorial groups. (maybe even only two written language class would be necessary for JF, so that there would be enough funding for SF to have two written language classes a week, at the very least)
The JF and SF language dossiers need to be put to rest. The topics that are chosen for reading are usually fairly boring and complicated. Some of them mirror the French obsession with philosophical thinking. The latter can be interesting, but can be complicated to read even if you did HL French for LC. Make the students read French newspaper articles everyday. At the very least, they can find something interesting to read in French and will actually enjoy (hopefully) language learning, and increase vocabulary. Reading/ discussing the Dossier wastes away crucial time which could be spent on being able to take grammar learning to another level.
Also, on the subject of the French dept's favourite word ('dossier'), The oral language dossier for JF should be discarded too. There should be emphasis on general conversation. Get the students to speak about everyday topics, even maybe get them to discuss issues that interest them and gear that towards learning oral French. Hearing about L'Affaire Dreyfus and Mai 1968 is not how oral language is going to be practised, since students are not going to actively read the historical subject in its entirety. There is a lecture in Contemporary France to cover all that.
In later years, there is very little emphasis on Translation exercises between French to English and English to French. This is disappointing, since this is a great way to practise grammar. Obviously in a dissertation or essay, you are only ever going to practise the grammar you know. My other subject is language based, and Translation has been fantastic for learning and practising advanced grammatical structures. This idea of writing résumés on articles is not exactly the most useful for language learning, however it does serve a small purpose in manipulating language.

Staff: It's a mixed bag. Some of them can be really nice, and will listen to your queries. If they can, some will help you. Others seem to give the impression that they couldn't care less if you were struggling with language. Some of them tend to live in their old little world, within their academic disciplines. Names are burning in my mind to say who's who, but I won't get controversial :eek:. Some of them will get offended if you don't call them Dr or Prof, or even if you call a prof. a Dr by mistake. It's very petty and silly stuff (which justifies my 'little world' comment). My view is, however much they merit recognition after having done so much research, it is over the top insisting that people call you by your academic qualifications. At the end of the day, we are all in a common effort to study French. That should be important. A good rapport between staff and students is how this can work.

Literature: It is interesting, however at times you feel like you should be an English Literary scholar in order to analyse the literature. If the very small number of staff, who do this, could break it down a little to help students understand the key ideas, it would be very much appreciated. It all depends on the lecturer/teaching assistant you get for each module.

Sociolinguistics: It is a very interesting course. The lady we have for it is lovely. The course material could be a bit more extensive, however the lack of scholars who write on French linguistics could prevent this. At the moment it is one of the parts of studying French in Trinity that I like. You only start to study this in second year.

These are my views on French in Trinity. In short, I don't want to discourage you from the course. If you like French, go for it. The best advice I can give you is to change your approach to language learning from LC to University level. Nobody will spoonfeed you vocabulary. Read French online for a few minutes a day, to learn vocabulary. For Grammar, don't get bogged down with the lectures. Take your time with grammar exercises. Find resources that work for you. If you like French, it should not be a problem.

Ravelleman

I don't really think all of the above post is entirely valid to be honest. But do see this post as being inspired by the above but not necessarily always referring to things mentioned there.

I agree that the current format for SF grammar teaching is poor. I think most people agree that grammar should not be taught through a lecture. A system of giving two grammar classes a week, in small groups with applied exercises in translation for homework would of course be much more effective. Something like this would force students to engage with the course on a weekly basis, which is precisely what the grammar lecture fails to do.

I think your point about the dossier highlights a frequent, but mistaken belief about language learning in college. The fact is that is that the process is not just about language acquisition, as you experience in the Leaving Certificate, but also about attaining a high level of cultural understanding. Language acquisition in college language courses is ultimately the means to a higher end. No one expects graduates of French to just come out of college with a high level of written and spoken French - that is implied. What is expected of the student is that they reach a high level of language usage and then apply it to some further area of study - be it in literature, linguistics or history.

It's hardly worth complaining about having to read texts about French philosophical thinking, 1968 or the Dreyfus Affair when these things are actually very real for the French, no matter what you may think about them. No one can pretend to understand the French psyche without at least having touched on these things and having discussed them in the course of their education in French. The fact is that French newspaper articles are often riddled with references to thinking and events like these. Reading the news is not enough - language learning involves deeper study of the culture in question. Talking about every day topics in class isn't useful and that's not what studying French or any other language is college is about. Everyday vocabulary should just be learned by the student as they go along.

Résumé writing is useful because it ensures a full understanding of a text and its implicit meaning. It's very easy to read a text, look up the words you don't know, understand each individual sentence and yet not understand the whole message the piece is trying to convey.

While frustrating, you have to understand that a lot of the staff actually have no real interest in teaching JF and SF students grammar. A lot of the people in the department are historians, cultural theorists etc etc - they're not employed to teach people to conjugate their verbs.

Language students can't complain about the demands of studying literature. Ultimately students of French have to be equally critical in the way they evaluate texts in French as students of English literature do texts in English if they want to get anywhere in the world of French studies after graduating.

French in Trinity is by no means perfect but people really complain too much and don't see the bigger picture. If you liked French for the Leaving Cert, with its painful emphasis on avoiding making mistakes in your grammar and spelling, French in college may not actually be for you. The people who are most successful are the ones who master the language inside and outside of class and use it to study something on a higher level. The people who drift through, without ever really understanding anything about France and just worrying about their grammar are the ones who'll end up in the merde.

djcervi

I'll be fair that my post was fuelled by a lot of frustration with regard to the language teaching and to the French Department in general. To be honest with you, my other subject is Spanish and I feel that as I have grasped the language well, I can fully appreciate the study of Spanish/ Latin American literature and culture. On looking back on my post, I can see how I might have given you the impression that I don't care about the history and culture of France. I do have a great interest in France, but the reason as to why I put all that emphasis on language is because it's the main basis of French studies. First and foremost, you need to be able to acquire the language to a degree where you can begin to understand France's literary, historical and cultural traditions. The French department gives us these texts in this dossier, but this is not supplemented by the language teaching offered by the Department. What I meant by reading newspaper articles is perhaps a little short sighted, but it does serve a purpose to become familiar with grammatical structures, plus it kepts you up-to-date on Current Affairs in France and the French perspective on topics such as our general election, for example. Also it can be a good way of understanding the French psyche. My experience of the Dossier in JF and SF has been that we merely read the texts (with little discussion), which has been, in my experience, fairly boring. This being the case, I feel that this time would have been better spent for clearing up grammar queries, since many people struggle with written French. I'll hold my hands up to the fact that likely I have taken my experiences of Freshmen language tutorials out unneccesarily on the texts. If there was proper discussion of these periods in French history, maybe it could have been another experience altogether. Maybe if we discussed these topics in oral class, this would have been more enjoyable as opposed to the oral assistant giving an account of it. I remember the assistants trying to get people to chat about them, plus talk about everyday topics (from the tv5 videos), but most people never really had the confidence to speak, which is a pity. These experiences make me feel (from what I've seen and have been told by classmates) is that language learning has its impact on what is an interesting course. At the same time, we could question the role of the student with regard to language learning. Can we really blame the French Department for everything?

The course is enriching and diverse, in that for TSM you can study history, many literary genres, sociolinguistics, etc. You can study many aspects of France's and Francophone literary, historical, linguistic and cultural traditions. However this can be underminded by the lack of support given to language acquisition. I do find with academics that they do forget the difficulties associated with learning French grammar, since they know how to use the language. To remedy this, I think there should be specialised language teachers (like in Spanish, my other subject) for example my Spanish grammar teachers have mostly been translators (by profession), so they work specifically with communication and grammar. They have been great at teaching language, as a result. Although it all comes down to funding, which has been said to us many times.

languagenerd

My other subject's also Spanish, and I agree that the Spanish dept are a lot better at the language side of the course - the fact that we have two classes a week in a small group is a LOT better than that French grammar lecture.

As for the dossiers... blah. They're a good idea in principle but some of the texts are so damn boring! And even the less boring ones are a bit useless - like what is an article about Brita Jugs or a cheesy film script about Mexicans gonna help us with?! Or that recent one that taught us how to draw punks in text messages? -:-( :P

But, I bumped this thread because I don't think the French dept deserve all the harsh criticism on the first 3 pages. In fairness, when it comes to the exams, the French dept provide good notes and are happy enough to provide notes via the college IT network. For the most part, we do have a good idea what we're supposed to be studying and learning.

And I'd even say that it's possibly one of the best French depts in Ireland if you're an interested and engaged student... (Am I either of the above? Maybe... :P)

Ravelleman

I also do Spanish. High five.

I definitely agree that the Spanish department's system for teaching grammar is much better. But we also have to bear in mind that they always have a smaller number of students studying with them so teaching in smaller groups is always easier to facilitate.

I just don't think that people give the French department enough credit. It's a very large department with increasingly limited resources. It could be that teaching grammar in small groups to that amount of people is logistically impossible.

We could say that they surely have enough staff to manage this but the truth is that a lot of the decisions affecting how they teach are handed down from above. All the departments are under increasing pressure to reduce teaching hours at the moment, so increasing them would be very difficult for the French department, or so I imagine. Teaching time is just one of the many pressures affecting lectures in this day and age.

Ilyana

This thread caught my eye because my experience with the French department was terrible - and I only spent three months in Trinity!

Admittedly my course was all wrong for me, so my judgement is biased, but a main reason for me dropping out was the fact that my love of French just died in Trinity.

The department needs to recognise that LC students are not accustomed to their offhand method of teaching, so it takes quite a while to adjust. Yes, we were spoonfed, so how can they expect us to adapt from day one? Too often, I hadn't a clue what was being discussed in class, while the foreign and A-Level students dominated discussions with the lecturer (not that I blame them, I wished I had their proficiency with the language!). Only the very best LC students could keep up.

By all means, study French in Trinity if you want, but realising early on that it's a totally different ball game to the LC is sooo important!

FUNKYTOWWWN

I'm in a dilemma.
I've kinda gotten scared that french in TCD is going to be quite difficult, with such a leap from LC to 1st year college.. Any here do it in ucd?

languagenerd

FUNKYTOWWWN wrote: »

I'm in a dilemma.
I've kinda gotten scared that french in TCD is going to be quite difficult, with such a leap from LC to 1st year college.. Any here do it in ucd?

It is a bit of a leap alright, but if you love French, it'll be ok. It's a large department, still 70-odd students in 2nd year, so most people survive the change

As for UCD, all I know is that one of my friends did it and dropped it after first year, she hated it.