Cours de Langue et de Civilization Françaises I is one of the most classic classroom texts used for French language learning. Designed to bring French to the whole world during the heights of its popularity, it aims to instruct the students entirely in French. Get ready to step back in time with this book and visit the romantic France of the olden days.
Cours de langue et de civilization was first published in the 1950s and has not changed much in the intervening half century, but that adds to its charm. Designed more for classroom usage as opposed to independent learning, it uses an immersion method of complete French to lure the learner into the language. The pictures are hand drawn with black and white photos and are reminiscent of World War II. I find this delightful since it really feels like you’re stepping back in time to old world France.
"If you’re an independent learner and looking for a book you can sit down with for 15 minutes a day and pick up something new, this is not the book for you. This is more intense, for a more serious language learner, one that doesn’t mind sloughing through a book entirely in French."
If you are a high school teacher contemplating this text, keep in mind your student population. There are no colors, no graphics, and nothing that might capture a student’s attention. The layout is quite crammed without a lot of room between the exercises. It gets a little overwhelming to look at all the text and there is not a lot of white space.
If you can get past the layout of the book, it actually does a good job of delivering the material. Even if you don’t understand a speck of French, the grammar explanations are well illustrated with examples so you can grasp the concept without understanding the whole French explanation. However, everything is completely in French so this can be overwhelming or a welcome challenge. You decide.
If you were learning by yourself, you would need some kind of tutor to guide you through as there is no audio to check you pronunciation and the book asks for a lot of language production, which you’ll want someone to verify. The book does provide some pronunciation keys, however, they are written in the linguist phonetics of dictionary entries. If this is not something you’re familiar with, then their pronunciation guide will be of no use to you.
Fifty years ago this book was revolutionary and praised as one of the best language learning resources of its time. Given the changes in student attention span and interest since then, I would say that while this book is good at what it does, what it lacks in “attention-getting” will ultimately negatively affect student interest in the classroom. There are a plethora of good materials out there that are more current and just as good that would be more effective with a high-school population. If you’re an independent learner and looking for a book you can sit down with for 15 minutes a day and pick up something new, this is not the book for you. This is more intense, for a more serious language learner, one that doesn’t mind sloughing through a book entirely in French. That said, if you have a guts to stick it out, this book would definitely help you on your way to French acquisition.
