Monash University Arts Undergraduate Handbook, 1997 - Language acquisition and language studies

Language acquisition and language studies

In general, language teaching objectives include:

acquisition of communicative competence involving oral/aural and reading/writing skills commensurate with course type and length;
acquisition, through practical application and formal instruction, of an awareness of the linguistic system underlying pronunciation and sentence structure (this involves the acquisition of an understanding of the phonetic system and phonetic transcription as well as a mastery of the metalanguage of grammatical description and discourse analysis (as commensurate with course type and level) - this will promote autonomous language learning and research skills);
acquisition, at more advanced levels, of skills necessary to translate and interpret into and from English and French;
acquisition, at more advanced levels, and in conjunction with general language courses, of French-specific professional communication skills and an understanding of problems of intercultural communication.

Graduating language majors are expected to be able to speak the language with sufficient accuracy to participate effectively in most conversations on practical, social and abstract topics. They should be able to understand the main ideas of all speech in a standard dialect and follow essentials of extended spoken and written discourse which is propositionally and linguistically complex. They should, moreover, be aware of and sensitive to social and cultural references. In their own writing, they should be capable of expressing themselves effectively in essays and research papers in areas of interest to them.

Graduated courses in linguistics provide an understanding of the structure of the French language and varieties of French.

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