French Language Software

Glober says:

First decide what level of French you want them to have. Being semi-fluent means you have a functional comprehension of at least 65% in the conventional range of that language, while fluent would be anything greater than 80%. If you want them to excel, the best method for that age range is called the “3 step”. The first step is to complete a FULL Pimsleur (MUST BE PIMSLEUR) course. Listen to each lesson at least 2 times, taking notes the first time with new vocabulary and studying before listening the second time. The 2nd step is to form a list of the 3,000 most common/frequently used words/vocabulary in English, to also include the eight parts of speech (verbs, nouns, pronouns, adverbs, adjectives, prepositions, conjunctions, and interjections), which you can search the web for. Once you’ve formed the list, you need to find accurate generic-translations, which you can apply to most common case scenarios of that language(definatley the most challenging part of all this).Once that’s done, make flash cards or whichever method works best for you in memorizing vocabulary, but try to include each word in a sentence, in addition to just the new word and it’s meaning. Repetition is the key here, so this would also be a good time to solidify your pronunciation. After you’ve memorized all that, the 3rd step is to locate 4 movies that are preferably some kind of Disney movie, or anything of a slower pace. Childrens movies seem to work best for this. Watch the movie in the language you’re trying to learn with good, quality English subtitles. Watch ONLY these same 4 movies continuously as much as possible, to the point where you know what’s going to be said next. Try to plan completing each step in this order, exactly as described within a time-frame of about 2-3 years. When you’re done, you or they should be somewhere in the range of “semi-fluency”, at the point where learning after the “3 step” is quick and easy, and being close to fluent after 2 years of using it everyday, and learning at least an additional 100 new vocabulary words a month during that time. You’ll thank me when you’re done!