La France Et La Francophonie (Text): Conversations with Native Speakers (Yale Language Series)

This engaging video and accompanying workbook present a cross-section of French-speaking people from European, African, North American, and Caribbean countries talking about contemporary French culture. Designed as a resource for elementary to intermediate students, the video provides useful models of conversational French that increase comprehension and fluency in the language, and the workbook offers transcriptions of the conversations and notes on vocabulary and grammar in the interview, helping to improve reading skills. Students, teachers, farm workers, artisans, police, engineers, airline employees, and other people discuss many topics, including French family life, work, sports, politics, education, and technological achievements. One interview is in French sign language. Unrehearsed, spontaneous, and in a variety of regional accents, the conversations present contemporary French as it is actually spoken, in all its complexity and richness.

Mary Anne O'Neil is professor of French at Whitman College, Walla Walla, Washington.