Subject courses - B2, C1, C2

Training

History of contemporary France

 Semester 1
This course aims to:
- Provide students who are not history specialists with a general understanding of the political, social, and cultural history of 19th-century France, from the French Revolution to the eve of World War I (1789-1914).
- understand how, through the founding event of the Revolution that marked the entire period, and the industrialization that permanently changed French society, the political and social structures of modern France gradually took shape.

Semester 2
This course is intended for students who are not history specialists and aims to provide general historical knowledge and reference points about France in its European and global context in the 20th century.
The aim is to understand how French society underwent profound changes over a period of fifty years, which saw two major world wars, an economic crisis that turned into a general crisis, a complicated process of decolonization, and also the evolution of the Republic.
Through a thematic and chronological approach, students will be asked to work with authentic documents and materials from educational textbooks. Individual and group work sessions will punctuate the course. Note-taking is essential.
 

Introduction to art history

Semester 1: Visual Arts Major
International students live in France, where they encounter a wide range of artistic expressions. This course aims to:
Introduce students to a deeper understanding of the visual arts as a reflection of Western European culture, and more specifically French/Francophone culture.
Provide them with the linguistic tools essential for visual analysis, both technically and conceptually.
The approach will be mainly chronological and will focus on a few movements in particular.
The course is presented as a lecture with frequent exercises and observation/reflection in small groups, supported by an activity booklet, in order to promote an active and dynamic approach to the subject.

Semester 2: French Cinema and Society
The French Cinema and Society course explores the major milestones in French cinema from its inception to the present day, as well as the key technical and narrative characteristics that define it.
This course is intended for students at the B2-C1 level.
Through the study of a selection of iconic French films, this course focuses on four major social themes:
- The feeling of being in love
- Family relationships
- Otherness
- Urban life
Using a wide variety of authentic documents (trailers, film clips, press articles, infographics, etc.), the course aims to show how these works can reflect certain aspects of French society.

Business and economic environment

 Semester 1
This course covers the major themes of general economics and socio-economics in France and around the world, through the key topics of macroeconomics and microeconomics. Based on a wide variety of authentic documents, the following themes - among others - will be addressed:
- The economy: who are the major players in the economy, and what is their role?
- Production: how is wealth produced and why is it measured?
- Inequalities: dynamics, redistribution and social justice.
- Socio-economics: an introduction to the interactions between the social and economic spheres.
- The alternative economy: SSE, the sharing economy, thinking about the economy differently.
Closely linked to current economic events in France, this course aims to give international students the keys to understanding the economic and social environment in which they operate: how is social protection financed in France? Who pays taxes and why? Why is the French social model often cited as an example? These are the kinds of questions we aim to answer in this course.

 

French literature

 Semester 1
This course will present certain trends in twentieth-century literature and the renewal of its forms. The aim is to introduce students to French or French-language novelists and poets, placing the works and their authors in their historical, social, artistic and cultural context, and to analyze the unique writing processes at work in literary texts.
Semester 2
This course is aimed at all students wishing to discover French-language literature through a variety of texts, mostly contemporary and accessible, mainly short stories.
The aim is to :
- discover authors read and appreciated by a young, student readership
- analyze the unique writing processes at work in a literary text
- enjoy reading and sharing texts with others.
The lecture will alternate with short discussions suggested by the teacher and based on students' questions. Various media will be used to discover authors and works: excerpts from film adaptations, interviews with authors, excerpts from literary broadcasts...
 

Environment and society

 Semester 2
Nowadays, everyone can see that human activities are having serious effects on the environment. So much so that scientists propose to call the period in which we live the "Anthropocene", because the impact of human societies on the earth system has become strong enough to be seen as the marker of a new geological era.
In this course we will:
Explain the term "Anthropocene", see how and by whom climate change is being studied, and what consensus has been reached by scientists and political players.
Examine the current disruptions to the earth system and their environmental and social consequences, before reviewing the feasibility of proposed solutions.
Reflecting together on a desirable, sustainable future for all the planet's inhabitants
As the study of climate change is interdisciplinary, we'll be looking at concepts borrowed from different sciences: physics, biology, anthropology, history of ideas, philosophy... However, the course doesn't require any specialization in science; its aim is to be accessible to everyone. Lectures will alternate with workshops for joint reflection. The course will be illustrated by numerous concrete examples from a variety of media (films, cartoons, interviews...) taken from current scientific events in French-speaking countries.
 

B1 and B2 theater workshop

(Limited to 25 students)

Semesters 1 and 2
The aim of the workshop is to present a show at the end of the semester. It involves the student in a collective process of building an artistic project. This adventure enables each student to develop a multitude of skills:
- learning French differently,
- public speaking
- develop oral fluency,
- perfect their pronunciation of the French language,
- develop imagination and creativity
Sessions are built around various exercises: body warm-up, diction and oral expression exercises, followed by improvisations and work on the text.
The oral part of the course is assessed on participation and commitment to the course, progress and performance, and the written part on a logbook that accompanies the whole course.

Options are opened according to the number of students.

Updated on January 23, 2026