Bilingual course
Improving your second-language skills can help you succeed in your studies and give you access to new and better career and training opportunities.
What is a bilingual course?
A course or seminar in which teaching and discussion take place alternately and equally in the two official languages, whether it’s one week out of two (option A) or during the same class (option B).
Depending on the discipline and the learning experience, documentary resources (reading lists, audiovisual material, etc.) reflect the two official languages as much as possible.
What are the benefits of a bilingual course?
A bilingual course allows you to:
- benefit from a dual cultural and scholarly perspective;
- develop dual literacy;
- become more at ease in the second official language.
What are the minimum second language skills required to participate in a bilingual course?
Depending on the course:
Understanding
- Understanding the main points of the information shared in class;
- Getting the gist of class discussions, including technical discussions related to your discipline;
- Understanding enough of what happens in class to be able to summarize the key points in your own words.
Understanding and reading
In addition to comprehension skills:
- Understanding the main ideas in course readings, including technical concepts related to your discipline.
Understanding, reading and speaking
In addition to comprehension and reading skills:
- Expressing yourself on a wide range of subjects in clear, detailed fashion;
- Sharing your ideas with some fluency and spontaneity;
- Switching between the languages you know to fully share ideas and arguments related to a particular area of your discipline with other class members.
Understanding, reading, speaking and writing
In addition to comprehension, reading and oral expression skills:
- Sharing information in writing in a clear, structured fashion;
- Expressing ideas and arguments related to the particular area of your discipline in writing.
What second language skills should I expect to develop at the end of a bilingual course?
Understanding
- Understanding most of the information shared in class;
- Understanding ideas and in-class discussions in-depth, including technical discussions relating to your discipline;
- Sufficiently understanding what is said in class to summarize the main points in your own words.
Understanding and reading
In addition to comprehension skills:
- Understanding most information in readings, including technical concepts related to your discipline.
Understanding, reading and speaking
In addition to comprehension and reading skills:
- Expressing yourself spontaneously and fluently without searching for your words;
- Expressing complex ideas orally, in a clear and structured fashion;
- Adapting your way of expressing yourself to the situation and intended audience;
- Easily switching from one language to another to facilitate communication in a bi/multilingual setting.
Understanding, reading, speaking and writing
In addition to comprehension, reading and oral expression skills:
- Conveying information in writing in a clear, structured fashion;
- Expressing complex ideas and arguments in writing related to a particular area of your discipline;
- Adopting an appropriate style for the context and the person addressed.
Other second language skills to develop
- Adapting to a varied cultural environment and better understanding others;
- Developing a deeper appreciation and understanding of perspectives on your discipline that differ by language of study;
- Developing mediation skills;
- Developing intercultural skills;
- Developing multilingualism skills.
For professors
Professors are invited to consult the Teaching and Learning Support Service’s Web page to learn how to write a course description for a bilingual course that includes all the mandatory components to appear in the course catalogue.