What would be the greatest number of credits someone could earn by testing in French? There are two CLEP French exams, I believe, and one in French literature. Is there a French GRE subject exam? A friend of mine is considering Excelsior. -Chris
There is only one French CLEP, and it's worth either six or twelve credits, depending on how well one does on it. If your friend is fluent, that would presumably be twelve. Beware, though, my wife says that the audio examples when she took it had someone with a strange Quebecois accent, and that threw her off a little. There is also a phone-based interview assessment that one can go through Berlitz that I believe may be worth even more credit than that, but you'll have to ask Excelsior how they handle that. -=Steve=-
The dialects of French of which I have first-hand experience are Quebecois, Acadian, and Cajun/Louisiana. There is of course the "true" Parisian French which many student are exposed to in school.
Did you take the French CLEP and if so was your experience similar? She took it maybe half a year ago. -=Steve=-
Interesting, when I took the CLEP in 1983, I received 16 credits (was 2 points shy of the max.). I suppose one way to get more credit for high or native-level fluency without sitting in classes would be to negotiate with a professor or the respective language department to take the final exam of a 4 or higher semester within an independent study or credit-by-examination framework. Anybody have any experience taking that route?
At least the other accents are mentioned. And thank you for putting the word True in italics. There is also French West Africa and the South Pacific as well as the French Carribean and French Guianne. Its hard to believe that anyone in the 21st century would think that Parisian French would be the norm for that language any more than London or BBC English would be the norm for this language. Québecois, Acadian and other accents are as acceptable as an accent from Virginia or Newfoundland. It follows that the language would use the correct grammar but the sounds are different. I come from Canada. I speak English and French as we do in Canada, why should I speak French like someone from Paris? Or English like in London? The standard grammar for both are the same anywhere in the world. Only the accent is different. Vive la différence ! Brad
I'm a product of the Montreal Protestant school system (as it was before we went to linguistic rather than religious school boards) and oddly enough we basically learned Parisian French.
And probably taught by an Anglophone who learned it that way thinking that Parisian French was correct French. Just my point.
Accents I am not a good enough French speaker to distinguish the different accents, it is kind of hard for me to carry an intelligent conversation in French. Nevertheless, I took the CLEP for Excelsior and had good enough results to get 12 credits. With my Spanish CLEP (I am a native Spanish speaker) I accumulated 24 credits in two afternoons. For my French CLEP all I did was to listen online to news in French for about an hour each day for about a week. I certainly studied before, but as I said, I can't carry an intelligent conversation, so, it is not that hard.
Actually, I was never taught French by an Anglophone. At least one teacher from France, though. Because I was in the "mother tongue" French stream I also took other classes (biology, geography, history and home economics) in French. Most of those were taught by French Canadians, but I did have an Anglophone and an allophone (Italian) in the mix. Overall I have to say that my French education was very good, it just wasn't "real Quebec French" in terms of the pronunciations and accent. Having said this the accent and pronunciation within Quebec varies based on region and education levels anyway.
I have not taken the CLEP for French. I learned to speak and write French during three years in high school and was deemed bilingual by the provincial government language assessment. However, that was years ago so most of my language skills have withered from lack of use; my reading and writing skills remain relatively good, but speaking and aural comprehension of the language is truly sad these days. I am sure I could pick it up again if I wanted or needed to do it.
