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Ensemble: grammaire en action by Raymond F. Comeau; Normand J. LamoureuxReview by: Eileen M. AngeliniThe French Review, Vol. 81, No. 5 (Apr., 2008), pp. 1050-1051Published by: American Association of Teachers of FrenchStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25481380 .
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1050 FRENCH REVIEW 81.5
affricates that can be heard in Vaud (Chevalley) and the syntax and morphosyn tactic variation of the regional variety of French spoken in Alsace (Salmon's com
plementary articles). Two papers take a historical approach to lexical studies. One, philological in nature, focuses on the Wallon dialect of Belgium illustrated in the Vie de saint Gregoire (Roques), and the other examines a number of older re
gional dictionaries and contemporary use of patois and regional French in the lin
guistic borderland of Lorraine (Richard). As a dialectologist, Richard makes a
powerful observation that, in this reviewer's opinion, those who favor the impo sition of official languages would do well to understand: In spite of overlapping linguistic boundaries, assimilation does not always occur, and, even when it
does, it does not necessarily entail identification with the superstrate. Francard's paper, which describes various aspects of the compilation of the
Valibel (Belgium) corpus of spoken French, serves as a strong reminder of the im
portance of considering oral texts in lexical and other linguistic studies. Like writ
ten texts, they provide a valuable source of data; the difference lies in the
register(s) they represent. Moreover, because written texts are composed, they cannot accurately reflect spoken language use in the way that oral texts do.
Although these proceedings were published long after the colloquium took
place, the papers presented are nonetheless informative and of potential interest
to specialists and nonspecialists alike.
University of Maine Jane S. Smith
Course Materials and Methodology edited by Carolyn Gascoigne
Comeau, Raymond F., and Normand J. Lamoureux. Ensemble: grammaire en action.
7th ed. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2006. ISBN: 0-471-48826-7. Pp. 418.
$65.95. Activities Manual. ISBN: 0-471-74489-1. Pp. 315. $28.95. DVD. ISBN: 0
471-77212-7. $14.95. Ensemble: litterature. ISBN: 0-470-00287-5. Pp. 316. $55.95.
Ensemble: culture et societe [with Marie-Paule Tranvouez]. ISBN: 0-470-00290-5.
Pp. 304. $57.95. Ensemble: Histoire [with Brigitte Lane]. ISBN: 0-470-00605-6.
Pp. 262. $56.95.
Finding an engaging intermediate language textbook is often a complicated task as the intermediate level is the level at which students are at risk of becom
ing easily bored. Students often feel that in reviewing grammatical structures
previously learned in their beginning language course, they are not learning any
thing new. The students are thus at the point of no return in their language devel
opment process: the intermediate-level instructor needs to keep the students
actively involved in an enjoyable learning process or lose them. While no one textbook is perfect since no one textbook can fit every teacher's
needs or teaching style, a personal favorite of mine has always been Raymond F.
Comeau and Normand J. Lamoureux's Ensemble: grammaire en action. Having been
introduced to the second edition as a first-year student at Middlebury College, I was curious to see how the series had evolved. Memories of the first chapter offer
ing exercises of every grammar point covered in the other ten chapters combined
with a review of the passe simple and a listing of transitional expressions for com
positional writing have never faded. Also, I benefited tremendously from the
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REVIEWS 1051
"Chapter at a Glance Sections"?mini review lessons at the beginning of each
chapter?when preparing for what was to come in the chapter as well as for chapter tests. My original copy (now held together with duct tape) has long been a main
stay in my teaching. Whenever an advanced-level student is struggling with a
particular grammar point, I refer him or her to the Ensemble main grammar text.
The grammatical explanations remain clear and concise and are followed by exer
cises that move gradually from simple to more challenging. What has always worked well for the Ensemble series is how an instructor is
able to, depending on the focus of the course, mix and match the main grammar text with one of the ancillary texts (Litterature, Culture et societe, and Histoire) as the "Vocabulaire du theme" is a constant throughout the series. Providing a solid
base upon which to build class discussions, the chapter themes are: Les Jeunes; La Femme; La Famille; Ville et campagne; La Vie sociale; La Vie politique et
economique; Mode et cuisine; Voyageurs et touristes; Langue et communication;
L'Art, la Scene et les Lettres; and, Musique, Cinema et Sports. What were not available to me as an
undergraduate student are the activities
manual and 17-episode DVD (patterned after the chapter themes). The activities manual does more than just provide additional grammar exercises to support the
main text. Broken into three sections of Workbook, Lab Manual, and DVD
Manual, it is easy to use. Particularly appealing is the DVD manual that provides
pre-viewing reading material that is written entirely in French (Anticipation? Avant de commencer) with comprehensive exercises for each scene of an
episode. The structure for the scene exercises are: "Scenette 1 (2 or 3)" with "Que savez-vous deja" and "Lexique" followed by "Denouement" with "Comprehen sion" (short summary review statements, multiple choice, fill-in-the-blanks, true or false, short answer, and matching), "Vive la difference" (short comparison
analysis), "Qu'en pensez-vous?" (discussion questions or essay topics), and
"Renseignez-vous!" (follow-up questions for further study). Ensemble: Grammaire en action has evolved over the years to remain current with
pedagogical trends. However, most importantly, it has not lost its original charm of a clear-cut format that is a comfort for students struggling with the finer intri cacies of grammatical accuracy.
Canisius College (NY) Eileen M. Angelini
Williams, Ann, Carmen Grace, and Christian Roche. Bien vu, bien dit: Inter mediate French. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2008. ISBN: 978-0-07-289759-7. Pp. 480.
$83.75.
Bien vu, bien dit is a contextualized text that is designed to be used in conjunction with the film, Le Chemin du retour. The film was written and produced for this text and is available on DVD, which includes the director's cut, with and without French subtitles, and an instructional version, divided into 12 chapters and featur ing on-screen pre- and post-viewing activities. Other supplemental materials are
the Workbook/Laboratory Manual, Audio Program for the Laboratory Manual (available online), Quia Online Workbook/Laboratory Manual, Online Learning
Center, and Instructor's Manual /Testing Program. The themes of the text are contextualized with the appropriate episode of the
film; for example, chapter 3 is called "Camille pose des questions" and features
vocabulary on "la sphere publique et la sphere privee" and question structures.
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