The renewed Core French Curriculum for Levels 1-5 focuses on levelspecific learning outcomes on which students must be evaluated. Because students enter the Core French program at different grade levels in Saskatchewan school divisions, Level One of the new curriculum may be used in any grade where students are beginning to study Core French.

• Research has demonstrated that language learning is dependent on a number of factors: the amount of time of exposure to a language, the intensity of the exposure, and the quality and types of learning activities that students are exposed to. This means that learning French should not be limited to the classroom. Any language learning opportunity such as visits to other classrooms, French activities and day camps, student exchanges, and technological connections with other French speakers should be encouraged and welcomed (Anderson, Netten & Germain, 2005).
• Successful language learning requires exposure to oral language before the introduction of formalized reading or writing. Even where literacy activities are introduced at lower levels, oral language always precedes written language, with varying degrees of support.
• Teaching and learning strategies for literacy focus on scaffolding language learning activities so that there is a gradual release of responsibility that begins with teacher modeling, to shared practice in structured and semi-structured situations, to guided and semi-guided practice, and finally to independent practice as explained on page 11 (Pearson & Gallagher, 1983).
• French is learned in meaningful communicative-experiential contexts in which the student develops communicative skills by being actively engaged in activities for specific purposes rather than by simply examining the lexical and grammatical components of the language.
• Fields of experience in the Core French Program draw on broad themes that encompass the learners' life experiences, intellectual development, and interests which draw from the following domains: physical, social, civic, intellectual, and leisure (H.H. Stern, 1982). Experiential goals lead to performances or products where students demonstrate their learning within a field of experience.
• The language knowledge component (orthography, grammar and syntax, vocabulary and semantics) is never pre-taught in isolation from its context. Rather, students develop language learning skills and strategies as they engage in authentic activities.
• The study of other cultures leads students to better understand and appreciate the filter by which other linguistic groups interpret their world. By participating in cultural activities, listening to and speaking with Francophones, reading authentic French texts, and examining Canadian history, students will develop an appreciation of what it means to be a Canadian in a bilingual country and a member of a multilingual world.