French 5: Fables, fabliaux, contes et Nouvelles
Time: 12:00 - 14:00
Avec « Estula », fabliau anonyme du XIIIème siècle, vous pourrez rire de la naïveté d’un bourgeois amené à croire que son chien a le don de la parole. Vous redécouvrirez également quelques contes classiques du XVIIème siècle avant de passer aux maîtres du genre au XIX siècle, avec Balzac, Flaubert ou Maupassant.
Finalement, nous aborderons des textes issus de la littérature contemporaine, avec des auteurs comme Boris Vian, Roland Topor et bien d’autres.
This course will be delivered online. See the ‘What is the course about?’ section in course details for more information.
Course Code: LF538
Duration: 5 sessions (over 5 weeks)
What is the course about?
The course will allow you to read, analyze and discuss a selection of short texts from different centuries. You will appreciate the characteristic themes of the fabliaux, tales and short stories studied as well as the intentions of their authors.
This is a live online course. You will need:
- Internet connection. The classes work best with Chrome.
- A computer with microphone and camera is best (e.g. a PC/laptop/iMac/MacBook), or a tablet/iPad/smart phone/iPhone if you don't have a computer.
We will contact you with joining instructions before your course starts.
What will we cover?
- "Estula", an anonymous 13th century fabliau.
- Classic 17th century tales.
- 19th century short stories (Balzac, Flaubert or Maupassant).
- Texts from contemporary literature (Boris Vian, Roland Topor, etc.).
What will I achieve?
By the end of this course you should be able to...
- identify the themes of fabliaux, tales and short stories
- develop an understanding of the authors' intentions
- discuss texts from contemporary literature.
What level is the course and do I need any particular skills?
Students should have a good level of French and an interest in history, culture and society as well as in literature.
They should be able to read literary works in French, as well as to participate in discussions in French.
How will I be taught, and will there be any work outside the class?
Our courses are characterised by spoken interaction and communication. Typical activities include pair work,
group work, role plays and games. A range of resources will be used to support your learning including
presentations, hand-outs, and audio-visual material.
Are there any other costs? Is there anything I need to bring?
No, texts and excerpts will be provided.
When I've finished, what course can I do next?
French 5 courses. Please enrol on the next module as soon as possible as spaces cannot be guaranteed.
Pierre studied towards a "Licence de Langue, Littérature et Civilisations anglo-saxonne" at Grenoble University in the early 1980s. He moved to Paris in 1986 where he worked in the field of Corporate and Financial Communication, first as an editor-in-chief for a specialised publishing company, and later as an executive in charge of Corporate and Financial Communication for a large national financial institution. In the early 1990s, he gave it all up and moved to the UK (an ambition since I was a teenager) and started teaching French in a private language school, then as a secondary school classroom teacher. He then went on to study and in 2010, he gained the Dip Trans IoLET (the Chartered Institute of Linguists Diploma in Translation). In 2013, he decided to resume his teaching career, albeit choosing to do so in the Life Long Learning sector. Pierre believes that learning and teaching a foreign language is (but not limited to) about having fun, expanding personal communication skills, seeing and understanding things from a different cultural perspective.
Please note: We reserve the right to change our tutors from those advertised. This happens rarely, but if it does, we are unable to refund fees due to this. Our tutors may have different teaching styles; however we guarantee a consistent quality of teaching in all our courses.