Le chemin des mots: pour un apprentissage méthodique du vocabulaire français par Danièle Dumarest, Marie-Hélène Morsel, and:Le chemin des mots: livret pédagogique avec corrigé des exercices par Danièle Dumarest, Marie-Hélène Morsel (review)

DUMAREST, DANIÈLE, et MARIE-HÉLÈNE MORSEL. Le chemin des mots: pour un apprentissage méthodique du vocabulaire français. Grenoble: PU de Grenoble, 2004. ISBN 27061 -1112-7. Pp. 183. 20 a. . Le chemin des mots: livret pédagogique avec corrigé des exercices. Grenoble: PU de Grenoble, 2004. ISBN 2-7061-1193-3. Pp. 92. 10 a. This slim but chock-full volume, intended for advanced learners who wish to deepen their knowledge of French vocabulary, lends itself well to classroom use or self-study. Having used the text and answer keys in an advanced language/ linguistics course, I would recommend this excellent resource to teachers seeking systematic activities on the lexical aspects of French. The text contains three unequal parts: 1. Sources of the lexicon (1 chapter, 30 pages, 9 exercises); 2. Morphology (4 chapters, 43 pages, 65 exercises); 3. Semantics (5 chapters, 96 pages, 88 exercises). Chapters include three types of components: a brief theoretical section with explanations of key concepts; mini-glossaries of items such as current Latin expressions, Latin and Greek roots, prefixes and suffixes (more common in part 2); and abundant exercises. The theoretical sections are quite minimal, with the exercises predominating. Theoretical notions treated and illustrated in the exercises include doublets, derivation and composition, nominalization , truncation, and sigles in parts 1 and 2, and hyponyms and hyperonyms, synonymy, characteristics of français branché, periphrases, euphemisms, collocations , antonymy, polysemy, comparisons and metaphors, and homonymy and paronymy in part 3. Exercise types are somewhat varied, the most common being fill-in-the-blank or substitution of a word or expression in a sentence context, using items from one of the glossaries or a word bank. Occasionally, no word bank is provided, but the teacher can easily construct the needed word bank by using the corrigés. Other exercises require explaining the meaning of a given word or expression, usually in a phrasal or sentence context. Also frequent are matching activities, where the items to be matched may be a word and its meaning, a base and a prefix, a simple verb and a paraphrase, or parts of a collocation. In some cases, one member of the pair must be supplied. Other exercises require forming derived words, rewriting sentences using nominalizations, supplying captions for cartoons (onomatopoeia), or filling in a usage chart based on a preceding exercise (e.g., an vs. année). Though the theoretical sections are too concise to stand alone as a linguistics text, they are well done. The real value of the text is in the practical exercises, which provide such a wealth of activities that even focusing only on Morphology, it was impossible to cover all of the exercises in a semester course. I anticipate using a number of the exercises when I next teach our advanced composition course. Particularly useful for teaching concepts such as precision and variation in lexical choice would be the exercises on nominalization and discourse organization, on the THE FRENCH REVIEW, Vol. 85, No. 1, October 2011 Printed in U.S.A. REVIEWS Methods and Materials edited by Sarah Jourdain 160 passe partout verbs faire, mettre, and il y a (substituting more precise terms), and on synonyms of dire and voir/regarder. The book’s layout is attractive, and the tone is playful, making good use of humor in its cartoon illustrations. Aside from an occasional typographical error, the only real annoyance is an occasional discrepancy between the text and the answer key. Given the advanced nature of the text (the authors indicate it could be useful for “lycéens et étudiants de premier cycle de lettres”), students will need to do dictionary research in order to complete many of the exercises. Ideally, this would be a collaborative effort, with each student assigned certain items and sharing the results of their research through a course Web site. Concordance activities would also be helpful for providing more examples in context. Finally, while the text is a valuable resource for vocabulary building, it will be best used in conjunction with other course materials providing activities of a more communicative nature. University of Minnesota, Twin Cities Betsy J. Kerr JANSMA, KIMBERLY, and MARGARET ANN KASSEN. Motifs. 5th...