Français interactif
This textbook covers vocabulary, pronunciation, grammar and culture of Elementary French. There is so much material in this textbook that it could not possibly be covered in one semester. Consequently, it would be a good text to have for French 1 and French 2. There are 13 chapters. Chapters 0 to 6 could be covered in French 1 and chapters 7 to 13 could be covered in French 2. However, instructors would have to adjust their syllabi depending on how many hours a week they are teaching. The textbook includes a detailed overview of the functions, structures and vocabulary that will be taught in each chapter. While the layout and design are appropriate and clear, I felt that there were some chapter areas that could be better organized. For instance, in chapter 2, “Quel(l)(e)(s)” is introduced at p. 45 but related exercises do not appear until p. 53. The same is true with the introduction of “irregular –IR verbs” in chapter 3 and then again in chapter 7.
The textbook appears accurate throughout the chapters.
The content and vocabulary is up to date. However, it is centered around French culture, but an instructor could easily change and integrate culture from diverse francophone cultures.
The text is written both in French and English. Most of the exercise instructions are written in French, while most of the “Grammaire interactive” instructions are written in English. This is probably due to the fact that all of the the grammatical side notes (in the margins) are in English, while all of the “Cultural side notes” are in French. The book uses armadillo symbols to indicate the focus of the exercises (i.e. vocabulary ; phonetics ; online video clips ; etc.).
The learning objectives are clearly stated. The first page of each chapter is divided into four sections: - Vocabulaire / - Phonétique / - Grammaire / - Vidéos. Each section enumerates what will be taught in the chapters and is followed by two to four pages of vocabulary at the beginning of each lesson. Each chapter offers a variety of exercises (on average about 30 exercises per chapter). The textbook offers a balance of activities: written assignments; individual/pair/group exercises ; listening parts.
The textbook is not clearly divisible. It lacks lessons within chapters. The grammar side notes seem to be working as sub-division, though, and for each grammar point, there are a lot of exercises. But because of the flexibility of the textbook, chapter can easily be moved around and assigned in different order if desired.
Overall, I think the structure is fairly logical. There were some instances where I would rearrange the contents of some chapters. For instance, I would move the imperative mood from chapter 8 to chapter 1 because it is used in some of the exercises. I would also find it easier as a teacher to have embedded videos and audio documents directly into the textbook, rather than to have to go back to a different page to access them.
I did not find any interface issues; however, it took me a while to navigate from the textbook chapters to the videos, audio documents, online exercises.
The text contains no grammatical errors as far as I can tell, except for the misspelling of a name: Nicolas Sarkozy first name is without an “h”. Thus, it should be “Nicolas” and not “Nicholas”.
The text is not culturally insensitive or offensive in any way. But I think it could use a broader presentation on the Francophone world, including countries such as Sénégal, Belgique, Martinique, etc...
Overall, this is a very rich textbook with a lot of diverse pedagogical activities. The fact that the chapters can be downloaded as separate PDFs makes it easy for the instructor to rearrange his or her lesson and to add content. However, I think it lacks cultural links to the francophone world other than France.