French Foundation
Complete beginners who want usable French rather than a grade — students heading for a French-speaking campus or exchange, and anyone who will have to introduce themselves, spell their own name and understand a room number in French. No prior study is assumed. This is preparation and not a qualification: we do not award DELF or any other recognised French certificate, and nothing here is examined by an awarding body.
What you will be able to do
- Greet someone and introduce yourself in French, and move between tu and vous without giving offence.
- Spell your own name aloud in French, and understand someone spelling theirs.
- Recognise the sounds and silent endings that make written French mislead an English reader.
- Write the accents that belong in a word instead of leaving them off.
- Recognise the numbers zero to twenty in speech, at the speed people actually say them.
- Keep a conversation going when you have not understood, rather than ending it in English.
How this is assessed
A first French exchange — written transcript and one recordingWrite out a short exchange of your own covering arrival, a greeting, your name, your name spelled out, a number you are told, one request for repetition, and a farewell. Then record yourself speaking your side of it, once through, and submit a link to the audio alongside the transcript. A practitioner reads the transcript and listens to the recording against the rubric below, and returns a written mark. If it does not pass you get the reasons, and one resubmission.
| Grade | What earns it |
|---|---|
| Pass | All six moves are present, the accents in the transcript are correct, and a French speaker could follow the recording without reading the transcript first. |
| Merit | The recording runs as one exchange rather than a list of phrases, the register is held from start to finish, and the repair phrase is used at a point where it was actually needed. |
| Distinction | The learner leaves the scripted situation — an unexpected question, a second speaker, a detail of their own — and the French still holds, with the sounds from module three audibly attempted rather than read off the page. |
Before you submit
- The exchange is your own, not the example from module one, and the transcript is written with the accents in place.
- It contains a greeting, your name, your name spelled out letter by letter, a number between zero and twenty, one request for repetition, and a farewell.
- The register is consistent — you do not open with vous and finish with tu.
- The recording is one continuous take of your side of the exchange, not eight clips edited together.
- For merit: the request for repetition sits where you genuinely needed it, rather than being inserted to satisfy this list.
- For distinction: the exchange goes somewhere the course did not script for you, and still holds together.
Handing it in
Marked by a French teacher, or a fluent speaker with teaching experience, who marks for intelligibility and task completion at a first-contact level and who will not mark an accent down. You will need an account to submit, so that the mark has somewhere to land. Sign in or create one. The modules are open either way.
Modules
8 modules, self-paced. Nothing is timed and nothing is scored.
- 1Your first exchangeFive expressions that cover the first thirty seconds.
- 2Spelling your nameThe alphabet, and the eight letters that cause the trouble.
- 3When the spelling liesSilent endings, nasal vowels, and why French looks readable and is not.
- 4Accents are spellingé è ê ë à ù ç, and why leaving them off is an error rather than a shortcut.
- 5Staying in the conversationThe four phrases that stop you switching back to English.
- 6Tu, vous, and reading the situationChoosing a register before you have the grammar for it.
- 7Numbers zero to twentyThe first vocabulary you will need in a real situation.
- 8Putting it togetherOne unbroken exchange, and what you hand in.