YCOFR 120 - Basic French for Social Services (Online Self-Directed)

Description

Basic French for Social Services (Online Self-Directed) is designed for current or future social workers who wish to improve their communication skills in French. The course focuses on oral skills necessary to function effectively and professionally in real-life social worker settings. It is comprised of five learning modules, each with approximately six hours of learning time. The first four modules will contain presentations, videos, exercises, and interactive activities in four main areas: grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation and listening 3 McGill University School of Continuing Studies Non-credit Non-CEUs Proposal Form (rev. January 2026) comprehension. The fifth module is a learning assessment module. It involves three tasks in which learners are asked to demonstrate their knowledge from the previous four modules. These tasks assess their skills in oral comprehension, written comprehension, and written expression.

Topics Covered

Topics and Vocabulary:

• The alphabet;
• The field of social work;
• Social work specializations;
• Personal information (name, address, profession, DOB.);
• Cardinal and ordinal numbers;
• The days of the week and months of the year;
• Seasons, weather, the times of day, the time;
• Family and family ties;
• Physical traits;
• Parts of the body;
• Physical and mental states;
• Verbs to talk about daily activities;
• Professional communication with a client;
• Vocabulary pertaining to urgent situations.

Learning Outcomes

Communicative learning outcomes:

• Greet someone;
• Introduce themselves;
• Introduce someone else;
• Take leave from someone;
• Ask and answer simple questions on concrete, familiar topics;
• Understand and provide simple quantitative data;
• Talk about yourself and your family;
• Describe someone physically;
• Ask clients about their physical and mental state;
• Describe their clients' physical and mental state;
• Ask and give the time;
• Ask and talk about daily activities.

Upon completion of this course, participants should be able to use the following grammatical concepts:

• Subject pronouns (je, tu, il, elle, on, nous, vous, ils, elles);
• Familiar and formal pronouns ("tu" and "vous");
• Indefinite articles ("un", "une", "des");
• The verbs "être" and "s’appeler" at the present tense.
• Definite articles ("le", "la", "l'", "les");
• The 3 types of interrogative sentences (rising intonation / with « est-ce que » / through Subject Verb inversion);
• Open-ended questions with the question words "quel", "quelle", "quels", and "quelles";
• The verb "avoir" at the present tense;
• Regular verbs ending in "er" at the present tense;
• Negative sentences;
• Possessive adjectives;
• Adjectives (physical description);
• Gender and number;
• Question words: "Qui", "Où", "Quand", and "Comment";
• The expressions "c’est" and "ce sont" to introduce people and designate objects;
• The verb "venir" at the present tense;
• The prepositions: "à", "de", and "chez".;
• Contracted articles: "du", "des", "au", and "aux";
• Expressions with the verb "avoir";
• The verbs "faire", "aller", and "prendre" at the present tense;
• Disjunctive pronouns "moi", "toi", "lui", "elle", "nous", "vous", "eux" and "elles" for emphasis;
• Adverbs of time, place, and manner;
• Expressions with the verb "prendre"; and
• Pronominal (reflexive) verbs.

Notes

As the course will be delivered online, students must be equipped with:

A computer or tablet; Internet connection.

In order to continue to the next level, learners must complete both the online self-directed and the online synchronous (face-to-face) conversation courses for this level

Who Should Attend?

Current or future social service workers with little or no previous exposure to French