Imaginez par Séverine Champeny (review)

Reviews 189 collection, is written for the instructor. Its goal is to provide the non-linguist teacher with accessible (at times a bit simplified) explanations of some of the most important aspects of French phonetics, prosody, and pronunciation, followed by worksheets that contain interactive activities that can be used in and outside of class with students. It also has a companion website , which contains videos, audios, correction sheets, and other materials (such as documents that can be projected and cards that can be printed out and distributed). One of the book’s goals is to provide exercises that will enable students to lose their inhibitions and“se lancer dans la prononciation française sans complexe”(3). The lessons are broken into three stages: those done as a class, group activities, and individual practice; throughout there is a great deal of emphasis on encouraging students’theatrical and musical interactions with the language. Part 1 of the book, “De la musique avant toute chose,” focuses on rhythm and intonation. Part 2 treats the pronunciation of oral and nasal vowels, and Part 3 concentrates on consonants (and semi-consonants/vowels, which are presented as consonants). The fiches at the end of each chapter contain activities that emphasize exploring the pronunciation of various sounds and rhythmic groups, distinguishing between similar sounds, and giving the students the opportunity to imitate French models. Although the book purports to stress informal spoken language, there are a few cases where students are asked to practice stilted forms of the language, such as questions that contain inversion (“Y a-t-il du monde?”, “Parle-t-il?” [17]), the subject pronoun nous,and so on.There is sometimes an emphasis on decontextualized phrases or sounds. For the most part, however, one finds an effort to teach students to speak as naturally as possible, by concentrating on prosody and the melody of the language. Designed primarily for français langue étrangère and français langue seconde programs in France, but also suggested for students studying French in nonFrancophone countries, the book provides ample creative activities to practice pronouncing the French language. The question is how to integrate such activities into the communicative and text-based frameworks that are at the core of most American programs today, since there is not usually an explicit focus on teaching pronunciation. At the same time, the book certainly provides an array of valuable activities that could be employed in various contexts by imaginative and resourceful instructors. Harvard University Stacey Katz Bourns Champeny, Séverine. Imaginez. 3rd ed. Boston: Vista, 2016. ISBN 978-1-62680-8126 . Pp. 528. $240. More than a textbook,this is an integrated program consisting of an impressive array of audio-visual and written language input designed to stimulate language production in the intermediate level French class.This edition includes several new short films and video clips which provide authentic examples of the linguistic structures targeted in each of the ten lessons.In addition,several new culture and literary readings complete the program’s design. The program’s strength lies in its integration of all of its components with communicative activities progressing from directed to open-ended language use. While the video and reading components along with their respective activities are presented in a very attractive magazine-like format, the structures sections in each lesson can be intimidating with their traditional format of rules, examples, charts, and diagrams. However,each structure presentation contains Mise en Pratique,Communication activities, and a Synthèse that put the structures into practice with meaningful and accessible prompts. Additional structures with the same format are presented in the Fiches de Grammaire at the end of the book. These are valuable tools which can be used to review the basics as well as to go beyond,a welcome addendum for the typical intermediate level class that has students coming from varying backgrounds.For example,here can be found a review of basic regular and irregular verbs, adjectives, and articles as well as the more advanced faire causatif, indirect discourse, the passive voice, and the subjunctive after indefinite antecedents. With the presentations of structures freestanding in the book’s format,it is my opinion that this program is...