French Language Program Objective

The Boston Language Institute, New England’s leading language school, offers French language courses to individuals and companies. The quality of instruction provided in our French language classes are on a par with the best native French language school.

We consider it to be the major goal of our program to have you use French in as large a variety of real-life situations as possible. To that end, our French courses have been designed to build fluency in both the spoken and the written language. Communication in a warm and relaxed environment is an important feature of our programs, as is homework, which includes exercises for review and practice of the material taught in class. Moreover, by keeping the class size limited to twelve students, we ensure that each student will be able to actively participate.

French Level 1
Upon completion of this course, students should be able to use the present and near future tenses to conduct basic conversations and write brief paragraphs about a range of everyday topics. This course aims to provide beginning students with a practical command of the vocabulary and grammar of the language. Topics include pronunciation, counting, indefinite articles, interrogatives, infinitive expressions and conjugation of common verbs.
(Contacts, Lessons 1-8)

French Level 2
Building upon the skills studied in Level 1, students will improve their conversational precision by considerably developing their vocabulary as well as by learning to use the compound past tense. Grammatical topics include possessive and demonstrative adjectives, idiomatic verb expressions, comparatives and superlatives, imperatives, measurement, money and expressions of time and season.
(Contacts, Lessons 9-13)

French Level 3
Students at this level will acquire vocabulary on a wide range of topics and will gain proficiency in expressing wants, needs and obligations. Grammatical topics include the definite and partitive articles, prepositions, adverbs, idiomatic verb usage, and expressions of quantity and date.
(Contacts, Lessons 14-19)

French Level 4
Upon completion of this course, students can expect to converse on a broad range of topics with greater confidence and precision. Building upon the skills already acquired, students learn direct and indirect object pronouns, relative pronouns, the pluperfect and imperfect verb tenses, adverbs of time, and expressions of habitual and progressive action.
(Contacts, Lessons 20-24)

French Level 5
Having completed Level 5, students can expect to be able to discuss numerous topics with relative sophistication as well as to read and write multi-paragraph texts. Students at this level learn the future tense, irregular adjectives, conditional expressions, ordinal numbers, reflexive verbs and pronouns, the imperative form and expressions of reciprocal action.
(Contacts, Lessons 25-29)

Conversational French
This program is designed for students who are already proficient in the skills taught in Levels 1-5 and who want to increase their conversational abilities. Conducted entirely in French, this course provides an opportunity for students to markedly improve their speaking and listening skills. Magazines, video and audio tapes, and other resources designed to provide practical opportunities for vocabulary development are selected to match student interests. Grammatical lessons are integrated in response to student needs and objectives.

Private Programs

Immersion Program

Text and Supplementary Materials

Since communication in a foreign language requires an understanding of the cultural context, our aim is to teach you the living language through carefully selected textbooks, newspaper and magazine articles and other relevant materials, rather than have you repeat and memorize tourist phrases.

Over the past seventeen years, we have reviewed many university-level French textbooks and have selected Contacts the 8th edition (Houghton-Mifflin) as the one that best fulfills the objectives of our students in beginning and intermediate levels. Corresponding to the lessons in this book is a complete set of tapes with challenging exercises, which you may borrow for home listening from our Cassette Lending Library. Teachers provide suggestions for texts and supplementary materials at the higher levels. Books may be purchased at the Boston University Bookstore, 660 Beacon St., Boston or from our on-line bookstore specializing in foreign language textbooks, study guides and audiocassettes.

Tuition and Course Organization

Tuition for the French program at all levels is $399. There is a non-refundable $35 registration fee for first-time students only.

In addition to our core program, we offer a Daytime Intensive program which covers three to four semesters in eight weeks - offering the greater likelihood of actually speaking, as well as reading and writing, the language than a traditional university course. Tuition for the Daytime Intensive Program and the Group Immersion Program is $1,995.

Private Programs

Immersion Programs

The Boston Language Institute Guarantee

Because of the individualized nature of our programs and the high quality of our instruction, we guarantee your satisfaction. If you are not satisfied with the quality of instruction within the first two weeks of a main session, or the first week of an accelerated session, we will refund your tuition in full.
Refund requests must be made no later than the business day after the second meeting of a once-a-week or the fourth meeting of a twice-a-week class of a Main Session; and no later than the business day after the first meeting of a once-a-week or the second meeting of a twice-a-week class of an Accelerated Session.

Class Schedules

We encourage students to register before the deadline above, especially since classes are limited to 12 students. A Program Coordinator will be happy to take registration information by phone (617-262-3500 x241), fax or e-mail.