Decouverte Et Creation

Rating:
Summary: Part of a plot to stamp out the French language?
Review: First of all, let me make clear that I'm writing about the "cinquieme" (5th) edition of this textbook. The earlier editions aren't, I think, too bad.

This is a shockingly miserable textbook. I've been jotting down its faults as they crop up while I study 1st semester French. Here are some of them, though definitely not all (and no, this isn't sour grapes -- I'm getting an "A"):

Firstly, all the grammatical explanations are in French, and thus, very difficult to understand for someone learning beginning French. I realize the theory of language immersion is currently in vogue, but this is a ridiculous application. Students of French need to learn common vocabulary, not words like "preposition" and "pronoun." Even if they are cognates, it's still hard to understand and a source of extreme frustration, even for me, though I've taken French before. Also, while the student is stumbling through these explanations, he's probably also mispronouncing them, and memorizing his own mispronunciations. Then, to avoid English, the editors resort to all sorts of extremes, like the silly picture on p. 119. And, at the end of it all, they still end up having to use English footnotes, anyway (p. 114, etc.)

Another problem is the choice of vocabulary. They use irregular words (like "oeil" and its plural, "yeux," introduced too early on p. 20) in examples of grammatical rules, making for more confusion than if they'd used simpler, more regular words. (Vocabulary words, in fact, are thrown in almost without context: there are some 100 vocab words listed at the end of each chapter, many of which have only been used once in the chapter, and not at all in any exercise. These lists have no accompanying English translations, so you have to flip, flip, flip to the back of the book, a big waste of time.)

The dictionary is not good. There is no English-to-French section, and in the French-to-English, some words are missing ("demon," for instance, used in an illustration on p. 49 but not in dictionary, and "choque" is not defined - does it mean shocked, or shocking?). And of course there's no pronunciation key, a problem common to many language texts nowadays but still bad news for the student of a language that has many irregular pronunciations. Also, there are problems like the fact that ce/cet/cette/ces are all listed together in the dictionary, so if you look up "ces" and don't remember it's the plural of "ce," you won't be able to find it.

Emphasis is not on the type of things you would need to communicate. In only Chapter 6, they are teaching which articles need to be used for cities vs. countries, something which takes a lot of memorization but would not be a big problem if you didn't know it. You have the feeling they just jumbled up the order in which things are introduced so as to make it different from the previous editions, so students couldn't get by with the old one.

Explanations are so terse as to be incomplete: in the same Chapter 6 mentioned above (p. 124), they list the rules for deciding which article to use, but then, when the rules overlap, they don't say which one takes precedence. I've noticed this problem frequently. Also, on p. 100, they give a list of colors to learn, including "blond" and "brun," but fail to note that these colors are used for people but not objects. Masculine and feminine are given, but no plural forms, except for marron and orange.

There are other little signs of thoughtlessness: on p. 83, for instance, in a exercise on telling time: they show two clocks at "12:00" and "12:20" but fail to show if it's supposed to be noon or midnight, which you're supposed to be learning: "midi" and "minuit."

The workbook and audiotapes are even more sloppily done: there are sometimes lines in the workbook laboratory section that are not said on the tape (the last few words in a list, for example, are forgotten). Often the choice of vocab in exercises is thoughtless: they'll give 2 masculine singular sentences, for instance, leaving out feminine and plural forms, which the student is supposed to be learning, too. There are never enough exercises, at any rate, in either text or workbook, to go over everything being taught - probably the worst problem out of the many.

The tape often leaves you no time to reply. You might think they expect you to use the pause button on your tape recorder -- but, if so, why are there humongous pauses while they wait for you to write things in? And why do they have written exercises in a workbook, anyway? Laboratory should be for speaking skills - you can do your writing at home. (My teacher says it is because people weren't buying the workbooks, so the editors took all the written exercises out of the textbook and put them in the workbook, so students would have to buy both.) Also, the speakers speak at a normal-to-fast conversational rate, which is way too fast for first year learners, resulting in more frustration.

Both textbook and workbook have been dumbed down, which may explain a lot of the above problems - it's almost like a slash job in places. This may be common in textbooks nowadays but the editors here could win awards. It's like huge chunks of content and sense were torn out to make more room for those nice, wide, white borders - and the pictures.

"Decouverte et Creation, cinquieme edition" is barely better than no text at all, especially since the price is obscene. Most teachers could probably do a better job producing handouts on the fly. Much better would be to have everyone in the class buy "Teach Yourself French" or any of the many other non-scholastic book and tape sets available.

Rating:
Summary: Greatest elementary French method going
Review: I have been teaching French for 17 years and I have never found a first-year method that even begins to equal M. Jian's. It strikes the perfect balance between simplifying complicated grammatical principles and encouraging students to resist passivity in their language acquisition efforts. I find the readings, cultural materials, and supplementary lab exercises exemplary. For any mature student who is interested in learning French language rapidly and correctly, I enthusiastically recommend this method. A must for first-year college and university French courses.

Rating:
Summary: A snobby book -- 400 Blows
Review: Thank you, Cathy Sahu (previous reviewer). I am using this book for an introductory college French class and agree with Cathy's observations about the text, the workbook, and the tapes -- I could not have said it better myself.

I don't understand why professors would choose this book to teach a class. It is simply not effective for all the reasons previously mentioned. I have had to supplement this book with three other books. The lessons are spotty, incomplete, inconsistent. Instructions are in French, which is very frustrating to a beginning student. I have spent more time trying to understand the instructions with the use of a dictionary than learning the lessons. The footnotes are not even in English. Just like my French teacher, it moves too quickly, does not explain, is not helpful, nor forgiving. If you've ever seen the classic Trufaut film, "400 Blows," this book is as torturous as that first scene in the classroom. This book will make you NOT want to learn French.

In contrast, I've found an excellent French text/workbook by Barron's called "French Now! Level 1" (3rd edition). I breezed through the preliminary and first lesson in about 2 hours, getting used to reading and writing in French, integrating new vocabulary words including verbs, nouns, and articles. The exercises in "French Now! Level 1" are truly helpful.

I also recommend a computer program on CD-ROM called "Smart French: Learn French from Real French People." I think this is helpful in learning the correct accents, in understanding spoken French, and improving and "naturalizing" YOUR spoken French.