Bienvenue dans le programme de français!  

 

French is one of the two working languages of the UN and one of the six official languages of the Organization. Many other international institutions have French as one of their official languages, including the European Union, the International Olympic Committee, the Red Cross, and Médecins sans Frontières. Many international courts also use French as an official language. 

There are around 220 million French speakers worldwide. 80 million of French speakers are native speakers. French is an official language in 29 countries, such as France, Belgium, Canada, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Congo, Mali, Senegal, and it is spoken on every continent. It is the European Union’s fourth most widely spoken mother tongue. The number of French speakers is expected to reach 700 million by 2050, mostly in Africa.  

UN French Language Day is observed annually on 20 March. The event was established by the UN Department of Public Information in 2010 "to celebrate multilingualism and cultural diversity as well as to promote equal use of all six official languages throughout the Organization." 

For the French language, 20 March was chosen as the date since it "coincides with the 40th anniversary of the International Organization of La Francophonie," a group whose members share a common tongue as well as the humanist values promoted by the French language. Other dates were selected for the celebration of the UN's five other official languages. 

At the Language and Communications Training Unit (LCTU) we offer French general language courses and specialized skills courses either face-to-face, online or in a blended format. Our courses are aligned with organizational goals and priorities and with the UN Language Framework, which is unique to the needs of our Organization but also in line with the most recent research and other recognized frameworks for language learning.  *Click here to see a progression of our courses in alignment with the UNLF.

Our courses follow an action-oriented methodology where language learners/users act as social agents who have tasks to accomplish in a given set of circumstances and in a specific environment. These tasks are often language-related but not exclusively so. Social agents collaborate, negotiate meaning, arrive at consensus, and communicate effectively both orally and through various text forms, thereby developing plurilingual and pluricultural competence, as well as developing communication strategies.