French (B.A.)

Program Overview

The French major encompasses a wide variety of courses to study the language itself, as well as the history, literature, culture, and civilization of French-speaking people. Introductory level courses focus on grammar, phonetics, conversation, composition and culture and are taught with an emphasis on oral proficiency. Intermediate and advanced courses are taught in French.

Program Learning Outcomes

Graduates from Messiah’s French program can:

1. Identify relevant historical (political, religious and economic) events in the geographical areas in which the target language is spoken.

2. Describe cultural trends for the geographical areas in which the target language is spoken.

3. Recognize syntactic phonetic structures in the target language.

4. Define important literary periods and genres.

5. Engage in purposeful reading and textual interpretation of literary and informational texts in the target language.

6. Find, assess and utilize secondary sources.

7. Engage in literary analysis and critical interpretation of texts in the target language.

8. Document according to MLA standards.

9. Write thesis driven essays about topics pertaining to language, literature, linguistics and culture.

10. Communicate in spoken form with native speakers of the target language.

11. Communicate in written form with native speakers of the target language.

12. Identify and locate career/employment options and opportunities.

13. Identify and locate continuing education options and opportunities as graduate programs.

14. Articulate the integration of their Christian Faith with the academic and professional field of Foreign Languages.

Major Requirements

Complete the following for your major:

Twenty-seven credits from the following: (27)

Nine (9) credits of the following:

Fifteen (15) credits of Approved French courses through the ISA program in Paris, France.

Students may select among a variety of humanities courses that may include grammar, literature, history, art history, or political science. Students should confirm with the Department of Modern Languages that the courses that they select are approved for the French major.

Students must complete a minimum of 33 credits in French (FREN).

QuEST Requirements

The writing requirement for this major is distributed among courses within the major.