This is a review of Teach Yourself Improve Your French Package (Book + 2 CDs) by Jean-Claude Arragon (2004).
Improve Your French is a good choice for the advanced beginner/low intermediate student (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: A2/B1; Interagency Language Roundtable: S-1+/R-2) working on his or her own, or as supplementary material in an intermediate level French program. It is built around written and spoken material especially written or edited for students of French as a foreign language. It includes material on such topics as the geography and economy of France, the French education system, and social and political issues. Using this content material, the course provides an intermediate-level review of the fundamental features of the language and common sticking points for English-speakers, including: simple and compound tenses; the conditional, subjunctive and imperative moods; active and passive voice; prepositions; adjectives and adverbs; gerunds; and pronouns (subject, relative, reflexive and object). The course addresses styles and registers (formal, standard, familiar) and briefly touches on verlan (slang words formed by inverting syllables, similar to "Pig Latin") and other slang/familiar expressions. Several poems by Victor Hugo are included to provide literary relief - or maybe to make up for the verlan!
The two CDs are essential to getting full value from the course. They include recordings of the dialogues, interviews, speeches, and reading passages in the text, short exercises on key phrases and grammar points, and some material not printed in the text. Several of the recordings feature a speaker from the south of France - an interesting break in the seeming Parisian French monopoly in the teaching French as a foreign language! The speed and clarity of the recordings is appropriate for this level of study.
Of course, students at this level should be using unedited, unfiltered French language material as well. The text suggests a number of websites that can be used to follow up on the various topics introduced in the course.
I think Improve Your French is an excellent product at a fair price - but be sure to get it with the recordings! Bon courage!
