In its fourth printing this book is a necessary addition to any teacher's reference library. It is as relevant today as it was twenty-five years ago. Written in a clear, concise style, free of jargon, the theory is understandable and not overwhelming. It enables the classroom teacher to have a basic understanding of the relevance of the practical suggestions and activities that fill the book. It is not a handbook in linguistics, nor a handbook for the student. Mary Finocchiaro was the teacher's teacher. Anyone who is charged with teaching ESL/EFL owes it to their students to read this book. I am certain that it will be around for many more years.

This product continues FRENCH 2. Wheras FRENCH 2 teaches "all the grammar you need to know", French 3 concentrates on understanding spoken dialog.

The dialogues themselves are pretty good. They follow the story of an American couple in Paris. The idea, of course, is to expose the student to vocabulary oriented to the various situations he might encounter in France. First the dialogues go at normal speed (actually pretty slow at that!), and then they are repeated slower. The accompanying book is a whopping 343 pages long. What's wrong with this product is that the tapes inexplicably contain a "grammar lesson" after each dialogue. This "lesson" takes a substantial amount of listening time. And yet it is not a lesson in any conventional sense: the student is supposed to repeat random, disjointed sentences without knowing exactly why. There is no formal explanation of what the "lesson" is about. (The book makes a feeble remark about these sentences also occuring in the written exercises.) How much better it would have been to use the space on the tape for a vocabulary preview BEFORE each dialogue! The book itself has the dialog texts. They are accompanied by interesting notes. There are also some verb charts and written exercises. The tapes are not stereo, although they sound good on a simple, mono cassette player.