BA French Studies / Course details

With a strong heritage dating back to 1896, French Studies at Manchester is the oldest French department in the UK.

It's also one of the largest, with around 100 students registering on its many programme combinations each year.

You will be taught by experienced academic staff of international distinction, includingthree winners of University and Faculty Teaching Excellence Awards, and a dedicated team of specialist language tutors.

Among our staff,over 70%are native speakers of French and we teach you in that language from Year 1.

Our innovative language-teaching programme, which follows an enquiry-based learning approach, is central to a curriculum offering a wide range of topics from the Early Modern period to the present, in course units covering history and politics, literature, cinema, popular music, as well as linguistics and translation.

You will benefit from our rich Library resources - including precious manuscripts, a vast French literature collection, and contemporary digital media - and from our long-established partnership with the AllianceFrançaise de Manchester, which hosts cultural events throughout the year such as film screenings, talks, plays, concerts, exhibitions and intensive language classes.

You will also benefit from our collaboration with theInstitutde Touraine in the Loire Valley, which hosts Easter and Summer French language classes that are appropriate for ab initio students and finalists.

The course unit details below are those you may choose to study as part of this programme and are referred to as optional units. These are subject to change and are the latest example of the curriculum available on this programme. Although language units may show here as optional, they are a mandatory part of your modern languages degree and you will take the units relevant to your level of language in each year of study. It Is compulsory to study language at all levels of your modern languages degree.

Students with an A-level in French study French language for 20 credits per year (equivalent to 3 contact hours + study time). Students without an A-level in French will study French language for 40 credits in Year 1 (5 contact hours + study time), and for 20 credits thereafter. All French language classes offer a mix of written and oral work to achieve precision and fluidity in the four communicative skills (reading, writing, listening, speaking).

Residence abroad

You can study abroad for up to a year to improve your communicative language skills in a native-speaker environment.

Collaborations and partnerships

The University has links with language and cultural institutions across the city, including:

• HOME - international and contemporary art, theatre and film
• Alliance Française - home of French language and culture.

Societies

Join the Francophone Society and benefit from French classes, discussion groups, cheese and wine nights, film screenings, themed socials, and a yearly trip to Paris.

The University is home to over 30 international and language-related student societies offering a breadth of cultural activities and experiences.

You'll learn through a mixture of large lectures, small-group seminars and even smaller tutorials, spending approximately 10 hours a week in formal study sessions.

For every hour of university study, you will be expected to complete a further 2-3 hours of independent study, which could be spent reading, watching films, producing written or audio-visual work, revising for examinations, and generally researching aspects of French language and culture through the university resources.

You will be assessed in various ways, including:

• written and oral examinations;
• presentations;
• coursework (which may include library research, textual commentaries, essays, podcasts)
• in your final year, there is the option to write a dissertation on the topic of your choice.

Assessment methods vary from course unit to course unit - see individual course unit listings for more information.

The University Language Centre is home to language resources, including multilingual word processing, language learning software, off-air recording and AV duplication, multilingual terrestrial and satellite TV, and a library of French and Francophone films on DVD.

The Centre also offers extensive support and advice for learners.

Learn more about our facilities .