Business French

Course description

This course is aimed at business professionals or students looking to work in a French-speaking environment who already have a good general level in French but wish to develop and expand their terminology applied to Business subjects while discovering the French business language and culture.
Aims: This course aims to help learners gaining confidence when speaking French in a work environment. It will also help them expanding their business, economic and financial terminology.
At the end of the course students should have developed a better understanding of French and being able to discuss current business topics more confidently and with accuracy and to produce written documents at a professional level. It is looking to make learners progress on skills according to criteria specified by the CEFR – C1 Level (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages)
Reading comprehension: become able to understand most press articles about the subjects studied in class
Written production: become able to draft and present ideas, or report on documents in a concise, accurate and structured way.
Listening comprehension: become able to follow and understand conversations on business topics and write a report about what they have understood.
Verbal production: become able to communicate with a high level of fluency about business, economic subjects and to make structured presentations and replying to questions and negotiating confidently to an audience using adequate terminology and language register.
Teaching approach: The course is based on a communicative and task-based approach so the learner will be encouraged to interact and participate actively during classes and research subjects in the French speaking press between classes. It is also aiming to develop the student’s writing skills, acquiring new terminology, developing listening and reading comprehension.
Course material: There is no specific manual for this course apart from researching articles from the Business press. They will be discussed, analysed, summarized or translated in class. Internet, audio, video materials on geopolitical, economic current affairs will also be used as a base for listening comprehension and discussion.
Student’s involvement: Students will be asked to participate and debate actively during classes giving their opinion about economic or business issues. They will be encouraged to share their experience or expertise about the studied subjects and asked to prepare short presentations.
Self-study will also be recommended (writing summaries of documents), reading relevant articles and watching to business programs in the news to become familiar with the French speaking business environments and cultures.