INTENSIVE LANGUAGE COURSES
This program meets for four hours a day, five days a week either during the morning or afternoon, depending on the session. Intensive classes differ from the culture and language program in that the classes are smaller (generally between 15-20 students) and there is a greater amount of interactive learning between the students and professors at the beginner, intermediate, and advanced levels. The different methods used to facilitate this include: films, music, radio, and audio aides.

An average day of intensive courses consists of one hour of in-class lecture on the topic of study for that day, followed by one hour of group work/conversation. A short break will follow. The third hour is most often spent in the language laboratory, and the final and fourth hour is devoted to in-class activities to reinforce the day's topic. Students more than one sessions usually switch professors at the end of each session (each month), although occasionally a student may have the same professor for consecutive months.

At the end of each session, the professor will evaluate how much progress the student has made and will subsequently decide if the student is ready to go on to the next level. This method of evaluation ensures that each student is placed at a level of learning where he/she feels most comfortable and will have the maximum learning potential. Students are encouraged to discuss these evaluations and recommendations with their professors. They may also do so with their on-site director if they do not feel comfortable speaking with the professor so as to make certain that they reach the maximum benefit possible from their study abroad experience.

Following are course descriptions. These will give each student a general idea of where their past experiences with and learning of the French language places them. They are however to be used as a guide for students and this is not a guarantee that they will test into a specific course. Upon arrival in Grenoble, each student will be given a written and verbal test to ensure proper placement.

IFL 001 - Beginner
This course is for students with little or no French background, who are embarking on their first discovery of the French language. The class concentrates on developing good basic conversational, reading, and writing skills. Special attention is paid to fundamentals such as grammar, pronunciation, and sentence structure with the grammar element focusing on the following topics: adjectives, articles, numbers and figures, the interrogative form, location, negation, present tense, and pronouns. This course serves as a high quality introduction to the French language and is highly recommended for those students who would like to have a clear idea about the functioning and the basic structure of French. A substantial amount of time is devoted to language lab work.

IFL 100 - Elementary
This course corresponds to a first-year college level French course. Primary aspects of the course include in-depth work on skills the student will have already acquired in the past such as adjectives, articles, the interrogative form, negation, present tense, and pronouns. Grammar elements studied in Elementary 100-199 include demonstrative adjectives, expression of time, immediate future, the imperfect and passé composé tenses, and personal pronouns. The course will also cover vocabulary, sentence structure and pronunciation, as well as work on written and oral expression.

IFL 200 - Intermediate
This course corresponds to a second-year college level French course. The course assumes a good working knowledge of French grammar and vocabulary. Grammar topics focused upon in Intermediate 200- 299 courses include adjectives, comparison, the conditional, future, and imperfect tenses, past participles passive form, verb propositions, and personal pronouns. Lab and class work will concentrate upon phonetics as well as more complex written and oral expression

IFL 300 - Advanced
This course corresponds to a third-year college level French course. It assumes a fairly proficient level of fluency in the French language. Advanced 300-399 will introduce complex sentence structures in addition to new vocabulary, all aimed at inducing a higher level of fluency in both written and oral expression. Grammar subjects covered are the past tense in its more complex versions, the expression of hypothesis, the plus-que-parfait, relative pronouns, and the subjunctive

IFL 400 - Superior
This course corresponds to a fourth-year college level French course. The goal of Superior 400-499 is to perfect the student's fluency in both spoken and written expression. Class work will require research papers as well as a series of classroom presentations, all in French.