The Joy of FSI French Phonology

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luke
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Languages: English (N). Spanish (intermediate), Esperanto (B1), French (intermediate but rusting)
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The Joy of FSI French Phonology

Postby luke » Wed Dec 21, 2016 2:03 pm

FSI French Phonology is a programmed introduction to French phonology designed as a predecessor to FSI Basic French (Revised).

French pronunciation is challenging to do well. Mapping the written language to the spoken is difficult because French, although somewhat phonetic has a lot of rules and exceptions (somewhat like English in that regard).

I did the French Phonology course a few years ago. It's well suited to 30 minute sessions. There are 10 units. Each unit is divided in 3 parts. Each part is approximately a half hour of work.

Part one of each unit is a brief dialogue and buildup of the some phonological points taken bit by bit. The "bit by bit" is the nature of "programmed instruction".

Part two is a formalization and expansion of the phonology introduced it part 1. It includes a series of written and spoken challenges. Being able to do part two means you've grasped the grammar, spelling, and vocabulary of the unit.

Part three is a series of "tests". Some of these are recorded. Many are written. These give you an idea an idea how well you've "mastered" the material.

I'm also doing FSI Basic French and see how the Phonology course complements the Basic course. A lot of the material in Phonology is covered in more depth in the first 4 units of (of 24) in Basic French. In addition to phonology, there is treatment of the 3 most popular verbs, etre, avoir, and aller; as well as regular "er" verbs. The phonology course also introduces the passé composé which Basic covers in unit 9, although it is introduced earlier.

For review or mastery of the dialogues, I pulled the dialogues themselves out of the recording with Audacity so they can be listened to or shadowed independent of the 30 minute lesson. The biggest revelation here was that one can "play the parts" while shadowing the dialogues. This is a technique (other than the shadowing) that FSI courses routinely use. The shadowing part though is good because it helps one identify pronunciation variation or hesitation and to really plug into what the dialogues are communicating. Best of all, the 5 hours of instruction is consolidated into a 5 minute review. (That is, playing both parts for all 10 dialogues).

Pros:
Reveals phonology and spelling conventions used in French in a systematic way.
Hits the very core of the language. Although I've never heard him mention it, it seems like it would go along with s_allard's 500 words, good pronunciation and the common verbs approach. (it's not everything s_allard would have in a course, but it does remind me of him now).
Great preparation for FSI Basic French.
Listening, speaking, reading, and writing are all covered.
Created by the U.S. Foreign Service Institute by experts in language learning from the 1960s/70s during what Professor Arguelles calls the "heyday" (height - zenith) of language learning courses.

Cons:
It's not a communicative approach per se.
It moves slowly.
The recordings are old and not very crisp.

Bottom line:
I've found it helpful. I'm glad I did it. 30-50 hours of the 600 hours of the time to learn French.
10 x
: 124 / 124 Cien años de soledad 20x
: 5479 / 5500 5500 pages - Reading
: 51 / 55 FSI Basic Spanish 3x
: 309 / 506 Camino a Macondo

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