Resources: Bescherelle Grammar

Bescherelle 3: Grammaire Pour Tous: Bescherelle 3 - Grammaire Pour Tous (French Edition)

Recently, I have started reading the Bescherelle French Grammar reference.  If you are not really into grammar, this may not interest you.  However, if you are determined to learn French, I have a couple reasons I think you should consider reading or at least skimming this grammar, even if grammar "n'est pas votre truc"

1. Grammar is important to the French society.  You can see this in their writing system (a good deal of spelling reflects the grammatical value of a word instead of its phonetic value), you can see this in France's school system (the Bescherelle Grammar and Conjugation references are must-haves for every student), and you can see this in everyday interactions (In my observations it seems to me that French speakers delight in viewing their language as grammatically complex and they have a very secure language attitude in relation to this).

2. This grammar can serve as a source for input flooding in written form.  There are both grammatically correct and grammatically incorrect (marked clearly) examples in this grammar.  The ability to compare the two is particularly helpful for learning which constructions are acceptable and which are not.

Using the Hachette Grammar Workbooks

The following lists some ideas for using the Hachette Grammar series beyond its own suggestions:

1. Complete each exercise orally before writing the answers.
2. As you work through the workbooks, highlight, in the table of contents, the concepts with which you have difficulty so that you can easily access them for future review.
3. Circle exercises you would like to review.
4. Mark exercises that you would find helpful to do with a native speaker.
5. Record yourself doing the free writing exercises, then listen to the recording with a native speaker and ask him or her to give you feedback.

Reflections: The Hachette Grammar Workbooks

The following is a list of some of my thoughts on using the Hachette Grammar Series:

• I found that month 6 of intensive language learning was the perfect time for me to start working through this systematic grammar series.  I attempted to start it during month 2 and again during month 4 but I found that there were too many answers that I was completely unsure of(probably about 75% at month 2 and 40% at month 4).
• At month 6, I was confident of about 90% of the material in the level A1 book even though I was probably at a level B2 in comprehension, and B1 in production at that time.
• I have preferred using the series as a systematic review rather than a first exposure to the grammar concepts.  At month 6, I had a solid foundation especially in oral comprehension and I was able to consult my memory on how I had heard things said by native speakers in order to choose answers to grammar questions.  This was a much more enjoyable way for me with my particular learning style, whereas someone else may have the patience and preference to learn the grammar concepts from a workbook like this.

Review: Hachette French Grammar Workbooks

The Hachette "Exercices de Grammaire" is a series of grammar workbooks for the french language which follow the Common European Framework of References for Languages (CEFR) levels of language proficiency: A1, A2, B1, B2.

The editors state that their workbooks target adolescent or adult students of French as a foreign language and that the exercises are designed to be used in the classroom or for personal study.

I have been pleased with the following aspects of the series:

1. The workbooks are monolingual - French only for instructions and exercises
2. The workbooks introduce each new concept with a section of the examples for observation
3. Many of the exercises create a context - a letter, a conversation, a story
4. The exercises are thorough and systematic
5. Sprinkled throughout the chapters are suggested activities for free writing exercises

My only suggestion for improvement would be even more context for the exercises which focus on verb conjugations.  The most common way to teach verb conjugations seems to be to refer to them by their grammatical labels.  This gives learners a superficial understanding of the tenses' meanings in daily communication.  I am still on the look out for grammatical exercises which treat verb conjugations with deep meaning rather than grammatical labels.  This series gets closer than many others I have seen, but it is still not quite there.

Tomorrow, I will share some of my personal reflections on when I started using this series and why.  Then on Thursday, I will share some ideas of how I have modified some of the exercises in order to evaluate and strengthen all four areas of language acquisition rather than focusing primarily on writing as the series does.

Resources: Hachette French Grammar Workbooks

       














A couple months ago, I started working through this grammar series. This week I will review the Hachette workbooks and share some of the ways that I have been integrating this resource into our language learning sessions.

Suprasegmentals and Paralanguage: Internet Resources

Following are links to some of the articles that I accessed online to improve my understanding of suprasegmentals and paralanguage some of them are more scholarly than others but at least they could be a start if this topic interests you:

1. An article on voice-setting
2. French rhythm
3. Discourse intonation in L2

Resources: Language Specific Web Resources

1. Audio resources for multiple languages: http://www.audio-lingua.eu/
2. Audio resources for French: http://www.audiofrench.com/
3. Youtube.com is bound to have videos in your target language, how-tos videos are great for language and culture learning.
4. Online radio stations by language: http://www.worldtvradio.com/php/radio_channel_language_lineup.php

Resources: Children's Songs

Children's songs are wonderful resources which provide the following help in strengthening your language skills:

1. Foundational Vocabulary
2. Repetition
3. Pronunciation help - many children's songs focus on hard to pronounce consonants or words
4. Phonemic awareness - rhyming, breaking words down into separate parts
5. Morphemic awareness - word families, root words
6. Culture - songs about daily activities, holidays, etc.

Resources: Public Library

The local public library has been a gold-mine of language resources for us here in France.  We go about once or twice a week and march right up to the third floor which is dedicated to children's materials.  When we first arrived we focused only on audio resources and now we have graduated to reading more.  As we try to focus on materials within our ZPD (we know ~80% or more of the vocabulary), children's materials have given us plenty to work with.  Children's materials also provide a lot of foundational vocabulary that may be missing from an adult focused language program.

Types of materials we have found helpful:

• CDs of children's songs
• Children's non-fiction DVDs covering topics such as history, science, music, cooking, etc.
• Children's magazines
• Children's audio books
• Busy books (books with pictures that portray a lot of actions) - for pictures to describe and discuss with language helpers
• Children's encyclopedias

Resources: Recording Devices

Digital seems to be the way to go.  Digital recordings are easy to edit, organize and store.  We use an iPod Touch, and don't have very much experience with other digital records.  However, I have included some quick links below for convenience.

iPod Touch: voice memo application

Other best-selling digital recording devices

Resources: Infomercials

Infomercials provide great opportunities for fruitful language comprehension and vocabulary acquisition because the speakers are demonstrating the very items and actions about which they are speaking.  

Resources: Lexicarry

Pro Lingua's Color Lexicarry: Pictures for Learning Languages by Patrick R. Moran is a must have for language learning.  It provides clear pictures, for thousands of common objects, situations, and locations, which the language learner can use to elicit vocabulary from any native speaker.   

The back cover explains its use in this way: "Learn vocabulary the active way talking about pictures.  Over 4500 everyday words and expressions in contexts that make conversation and interactive learning easy."