The Rhythm of French
(Continued from Page One)

The exercises and quizzes are mostly listen, click on the correct answer, and record my voice and compare it to the native speaker, quite standard fare for a CD of this sort. It would have been more interesting to encounter some contextualized interactivities. As an example, after doing the simple comparative analysis of a minimal pair ([y] and [u]), I could participate in an interactive dialogue, forcing me to make sure I heard my French friend correctly when I put together my response or action. If mon ami said to me, "Madame Suffeau veut aller a Lassou… achetez un billet pour elle, Brian", but I heard, "Madame Souffeau veut aller a Lassu… ", I could get into all sorts of mischief until I got it correct. Put Madame Suffeau on the screen as a cartoon character or digital video and chastise me for putting her on the wrong train. Lots of fun, and pressure to perform for me. Activities could include click-and-drag, matching phrases, maps, pictures, animations and videos. Is this too much effort for the ‘listening’ activities of a pronunciation CD? Perhaps, but the content of the three CDs fills up less than half of the possible 1.9 gigabytes available, so there’s plenty of room for expansion.

As I worked my way through the exercises and quizzes, I accumulated points which I could use to claim a prize. Each time I claimed one, I used up some or all of my points. The prizes were either "phrases difficiles a prononcer" (tongue twisters) or short conversations or monologues with a photo pertaining to French culture. I had the choice of listening in French with text in French or English, as well as listening to and recording only the phrases I chose. This was an interesting way for me to learn about some cultural aspects, and of course record my voice and compare it to the speaker. My only criticism of the conversations is that the two male speakers sounded alike; perhaps a male-female partnership would clear up any confusion.

The navigation of The Rhythm of French is simple but effective. It’s pretty hard to get lost, and after several ‘log-ons’ I was navigating easily between the lessons. The graphics are not very spectacular, but that is expected for a product destined for Windows 3.1 machines at the low-end. I am interested in trying this on a Macintosh running Windows-emulating software (that’s what the advertising from Salix claims it can do), as there are no CPU-intensive tasks that would slow it down. It’s a shame that the CD is not a hybrid (Mac and Windows); a cross-platform authoring program like Macromedia’s Director would have allowed for a slicker package for low- and high-end Macs and PCs. There are still a lot of Macintosh labs in education, and they would truly benefit from The Rhythm of French.

Did I learn enough from these CDs to make it worth the purchase? Yes I did. As an adult learner of French with some background in linguistics, I could understand the explanations, vocabulary, and the phonetic transcriptions. Did it work better than a tape and workbook? Yes. The instant feedback is of course an invaluable feature of the interactivity of any software. The listening-distinction exercises are quite basic, though, and high school French pupils might express boredom with the lack of sophisticated item types, but a college professeur will find this a valuable tool for homework assignments, introductions to classroom lessons, or simply as a supplement to a French pronunciation course.