Overview of the French Basic Course

The French Basic Course is designed to enable you to reach conversational proficiency. You learn how to control the French sound system by listening to the tapes and repeating each phrase. Each unit presents a complete grammatical structure. The dialogues present natural spoken French in a variety of contexts, such as, greeting people, registering at a hotel, getting a train ticket, and shopping. This course is recommended for those who want to acquire a solid base in French grammar and vocabulary.

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Planned in two volumes, French Basic Course (Revised) has been designed to help students reach a level of proficiency which will enable them to participate effectively in most formal and informal conversations. The dialogues, drills, situations and narrations have been tape-recorded unless otherwise indicated in the text.

For beginning students, the twenty-four units are designed for a six-month intensive training program of six hours of class per day, plus outside preparation. Each unit presents a situational topic introduced in a dialogue, and usually five grammar points. Each grammar piont is preceded by grammar notes which generally are expressed in non-technical terms.

Other units include materials of the following kinds.

A dialogue to provide a body of natural French conversation as a source for subsequent drills and exercises. (At FSI these dialogues are commonly memorized.)

Useful words to supplement the vocabulary with a limited number of additional words, usually related to the topic of the dialogue

Vocabulary awareness to enable the student to better identify the elements of the utterances he learned as a whole and to regroup and review vocabulary.

Drills of six different kinds, each type designed for a specific purpose.

A. Lexical drills to manipulate already acquired vocabulary and improve fluency.

B. Learning drills to introduce new grammar points (with reference to the corresponding grammar notes).

C. Practice drills to give the student an opportunity to illustrate in sentences the grammar point he just covered.

D. Question

E. Answer -- drills to prepare the student for normal conversation.

F. Review

Situations to improve comprehension and serve as a basis for questions and elementary conversation.

Narrations to provide reading material and introduce a very limited number of vocabulary items.

Written exercises to offer to the student opportunity to relate the spoken language to the writing system.