| For
learning French:
"Bienvenue
en France" is the only video-based
general language learning course available in the SAC at present.
Its 24 episodes follow the adventures of 2 young trainee receptionists,
Vincent and Françoise, as they learn about working
in the deluxe Parisian Hotel de la Concorde. The language
is general and the situations humorous; basically, Vincent
would like Françoise to be his girlfriend. Watch to
the end of the cassettes to see if he succeeds
The first video (red)
contains the first 13 episodes with grammatical explanations
at the end of each in French only; it is accompanied
by a copy of the students book, teachers notes, workbook and
4 audio cassettes (see "Recommended
French Text Resources") and is strongly
recommended as supplementary material if you are learning
French by following a course with a teacher. Try to watch
at least one fifteen-minute episode per week to reinforce
what you are learning in another course.
The remaining 3 videos
cover episodes 13 to 24 and include introductions to each
episode and further grammatical explanations by a team of
three presenters in French and Putonghua.
"Linguaphone
French Video"
is a 2-cassette course not to be confused with the
Linguaphone French and Linguaphone Intermediate French courses.
Its 8 episodes cover many everyday situations in the city
of Tours, and the bilingual presentation of the accompanying
coursebook - English on the left, French on the right-hand
pages - make understanding of the video extracts easy. See
"Recommended French Text Resources".
Strongly recommended
for beginners as self-study or supplementary material.
The other video for
general language use is "Accelerated Learning French",
a "total physical response" course which encourages the viewer
to touch things and then proceed to move them. As the transcript
manual informs you, the video is deliberately fast-paced to
prevent you from translating in your head, so expect to have
to watch each section several times. It is accompanied by
an introductory study guide and games in English, word
cards and 12 audio cassettes. See "Recommended
French Text Resources". Only French is used
throughout the video, but the visual element makes this recommended
for learning the words for everyday objects just dont try
to move things around too much in the SAC ! |
