Speakeasy wrote:The audio-lingual method (drill, drill, drill) was so pervasive in American high school and university language courses in the 1970's that virtually all publishers of French courses destined for classroom instruction published their own versions. In many cases, copies of the course books can still be found on the internet and, quite possibly, in the archives of some of the larger universities. The difficulty is locating the corresponding audio files. As the "language laboratory method" declined in popularity, and as audio recording technology continued to evolve, much of the equipment was trashed, the reel-to-reel tapes as well.zjones wrote:Are there any other drill-based French courses apart from FSI? ...
Coming back to the FSI French drills, I have a fairly large collection of audio-lingual textbooks for the teaching of German and, having familiarised myself with their contents, I must admit that the method's reputation for mind-numbing drills was well-deserved. Although I have not completed either the FSI French Basic OR the DLI French Basic courses, I have skimmed through the materials and I found that the latter's drills were a little more engaging. You can locate the files on the Yojik.eu website. You might also try the "updated" version of the FSI French Basic course which is available via Audible as "Mastering French" but which, unfortunately, is an incomplete work-in-progress.
DLI French Basic
https://fsi-languages.yojik.eu/languages/DLI/DLI-French.html
FSI Basic Courses: Updated
https://forum.language-learners.org/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=6400
Vas-y, t'es capable!
EDITED:
Tinkering.
Thank you, you are such a wealth of information. I will try DLI French Basic this week to see if it suits me better than FSI. Otherwise I might try writing some of my own drills if I find the motivation...
As far as the Mastering French course on Audible, do you know if only the audio is remastered (keeping the same drills and vocabulary as the original) or if they have also changed the course material?
Merci beaucoup!