Department of Modern Language and Comparative Literatures
Baruch College
Spring 2016
Instructor: Professor Largent
Course Number, Class Time, & Location: FRE 1001 CMWA
MW 10:45 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. 17 Lex. 305
Office hours: by appointment
Phone: 917-648-5361
E-mail: cklargent5@gmail.com
Learning Goals:
- To learn to develop the four communicative language skills: listening, speaking, reading and
writing.
- To exchange information, to understand, ask and answer questions on familiar topics such as
classroom subjects, time, dates, school schedules, family relationships, and nationalities.
- To describe people (family and friends), to describe the weather and seasons, clothing and colors,
rooms and furniture in the house.
- To be able to express preferences, order food and drink, go shopping, and to plan travel and
vacation activities.
- To learn to communicate in the present tense, the near future and to begin to narrate actions and
events in the recent past.
- To develop an understanding of cultures and customs of French-speaking countries around the world.
Materials and Resources:
Textbook
Valdman, Pons, and Scullen. Chez Nous. Pearson, 2014, Fourth Edition ISBN: 978-0-20593376-1
Purchased book comes with Workbook that is also required for this course.
Book sold at Bookstore comes with Online Code. However, you may only purchase online
code since the e-book is included in online materials. Bear in mind, however, that access to
online material is limited. 4-5 months.
Online Resources Via Pearson
Go to www.mylanguagelabs.com
Got www.myfrenchlab.com
1
Course ID = TBA
Then Register. Must purchase access code. See handout on Blackboard if you have login issues.
Student Registration Help with Videos (click on link)
Language Lab
Mandatory Lang Lab Attendance; 1/2 hr per week or 1 hr every two weeks. Listen to audio and
video recordings online. Great way to practice listening skills and pronunciation. Self -tutored
computer drills, and additional French exercises must be used during lab time.)
See the two PDF docs on Blackboard, with specific requirements and schedule.
Tutoring is strongly recommended. Free tutoring is available (VC 2 nd Fl/ SACC office).
Homework
Workbook Assignments chapters 1-8 will be AUTO GRADED (you grade your own homework
using a red pen). This will be handed in to me at the completion of every other chapter, (when we
also have a short review test, see below). INCOMPLETE/ no credit will be given if assignments are
missing. I will not accept any late homework.
Accessible Participation
Baruch College is committed to making individuals with disabilities full participants in the programs,
services, and activities of the college community through compliance with Section 504 of the
Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990. It is the policy
of Baruch College that no otherwise qualified individual with a disability will be denied access to any
program, service, or activity offered by the university. Individuals with disabilities have a right to
request accommodations. If you require any special assistance or accommodation, please contact the
Office of Services for Students with Disabilities at (646) 312-4590, and let me know as soon as you
can, ideally during the first three weeks of the semester. I encourage persons with disabilities or
particular needs that impact course performance to meet with me to co-design accommodations.
For additional information see:
http://www.baruch.cuny.edu/facultyhandbook/DisabilitiesInformation.htm
Classroom Policies
Attendance:
 If you have more than 2 absences, your final course grade will be lowered by a half letter
for each additional absence (a B+ becomes a B)—and your grade likely will be otherwise
affected simply because of the activities and work you’ll miss.
 If you miss class more than 4 times, you must arrange to meet with me privately and,
according to Baruch College policy, you will be subject to a WU grade, which counts as an
F on your transcript and your GPA.
2
From the official Baruch College attendance policy: “If a freshman or sophomore is absent
in excess of twice the number of class sessions per week, the instructor must give the
student a WU grade, which counts as an F. The instructor may give a junior or senior a
WU grade if he/she has excessive absences. Attendance and lateness clearly play a role in
class participation. Instructors have the right to weigh attendance, lateness, and class
participation in determining grades.”
 If you must miss class, let me know ahead of time if possible to make sure you stay caught
up. If you miss unexpectedly, check the schedule on our course website and make friends
with someone in class to see what you missed so you can stay up with your work. If you
miss class, please do not email me asking what we did in class, or, worse, if we did
anything in class you should know about.
 If an assignment is due on a day that you miss because of an unexcused absence, you are
responsible for keeping up with the daily schedule and contacting someone in the class to
see what you missed and for turning in your work at the same time it was due for those
who were in class [see “Late Work”].
Late Policy
 Because showing up on time and respecting other people are important parts of being a
good student (in your case), a good teacher (in my case), and ultimately a good human
being, I’ll hold all of us to a standard of being on time to class and staying until class is
over. Late arrivals and early departures are disruptive and ultimately disrespectful.
Therefore, if you arrive late to class late more than twice it will count as an absence. The
same will hold true if you leave class early more than twice. If you do arrive late to class,
please check with someone nearby to see what you may have missed.

Quizzes & Exams
There will be a short test at the end of every two chapters. Note that if you miss a test, I do not allow
make-ups. Please hand in your AUTO GRADED homework on test day. On the syllabus, the
assignments will be marked as “Cahier et Contrôle.” There will be also a mid-term, a final exam and
an oral test. Frequent quizzes on verbs will be given.
Grades
Class Participation
Homework/Lab 15%
Contrôles
Midterm
Final Exam & Oral
10%
35% (15% for each Contrôle and 5% for verb quizzes)
15%
25%
Integrity Statement
Learning involves the pursuit of truth, which cannot be pursued by presenting someone else’s
work as your own. By following the procedure outlined below, you will establish a basis of trust
that will remain unless you provide reason to suspect it has been violated:
1. Visit the college’s Academic Honesty Policy web
3
site: http://www.baruch.cuny.edu/academic/academic_honesty.html
2. Read the material it contains.
3. Send me an email (or bring a signed statement to class) truthfully stating that you have read the
web page, understood it, and that you agree to act according to the principles it expresses.
For further discussion of plagiarism and clarification of its parameters, see the online plagiarism
tutorial prepared by members of the Newman Library faculty at
http://newman.baruch.cuny.edu/help/plagiarism/default.htm. If questions remain, ask me.
Ignorance is not an acceptable excuse for unacceptable practices. For the record, if you violate the
precepts of academic integrity you will receive a zero for the assignment and your name will be
forwarded to the Office of the Dean of Students, where a notation will become part of your file at
Baruch.
Baruch’s Writing Center.
The Writing Center offers students support in evaluating and using sources, citation, and
plagiarism avoidance. In one-to-one consultations, students share their drafts and research
materials with an instructor of college writing to ensure effective source presentation and citation.
In addition to individual sessions, the Center offers a small-group workshop in Ethical Writing
and Research. More information is available at http://baruch.cuny.edu/writingcenter.
à Faculty members may use the lesson plan for the Ethical Writing and Research Workshop in
their own classrooms. Materials are available at
http://www.baruch.cuny.edu/writingcenter/WorkshopMaterials.htm.
Writing Handbook
The college's writing handbook also should be useful in addressing issues of plagiarism -- all
undergraduates who entered as freshmen should own one of these handbooks:
• Fowler and Aaron, The Essential Little, Brown Handbook, pp. 150-56
• Fowler and Aaron, The Little, Brown Handbook, pp. 629-38
A Definition of Plagiarism
Plagiarism means presenting the work of others as your own. The "work of others" means other
people's words and/or ideas. "Presenting...as your own" means including that work in your
assignment without adequate citation. Therefore, a slightly longer definition would be
"Plagiarism means including in your assignment other people's words and/or ideas without citing
them correctly." Here are some hints about citation: When you include the actual words of others,
be they from a printed source, from the web, or from a live presentation, they must appear within
quotation marks and you must indicate from where and from whom the words came. Otherwise
you are plagiarizing. When you include another person's ideas, you must indicate where you
found those ideas, even when you are paraphrasing them. Following someone else's sequence of
ideas, even if you paraphrase them, also is plagiarism. (An example would be paraphrasing a
paragraph from someone else's work, sentence by sentence, even if you include a citation of that
author.) If you have any questions about these definitions, please discuss them with me. You can
also refer to Baruch's online plagiarism tutorial
http://newman.baruch.cuny.edu/help/plagiarism/default.htm or to Fowler and Aaron, The Little,
Brown Handbook (pp. 629-38) or The Essential Little, Brown Handbook (pp. 150-56), where
you can also read about correct styles of citation.
Turnitin.com
4
The college subscribes to the online plagiarism-detecting resource, Turnitin.com. To learn about
its use and to get a password, please contact Prof. Gerard Dalgish (English) at
Gerard.dalgish@baruch.cuny.edu
Other Statements, Sources, Resources
- Several other statements/approaches may be found at...
http://www.baruch.cuny.edu/facultyhandbook/Academic_Integrity_Related/Academic_Integrity_
Syllabus.doc
- Students may also be directed to the Student Guide to Academic Integrity at Baruch, available
at...
http://www.baruch.cuny.edu/facultyhandbook/documents/StudentGuidePDF.pdf
- Please feel free to peruse our academic integrity summary for faculty...
http://www.baruch.cuny.edu/facultyhandbook/documents/Ac_Integr_Summary_Fall_07.htm
- Baruch College's Academic Integrity website...
http://www.baruch.cuny.edu/facultyhandbook/AcademicIntegrity.htm
5