French in Action
Overview
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
course, developed by Professor
Professor
A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...
Pierre Capretz
Pierre Capretz
Pierre Jean Capretz is an educator and writer, noted for his audio-visual methods for teaching French. A graduate of the University of Paris, he began teaching French in 1949 at the University of Florida and joined the faculty of Yale University in 1956, eventually becoming Director of the...
of Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
. The course includes workbooks, textbooks, and a 52-episode television series.
The television series — the best-known aspect of the course — was produced in 1987 by WGBH
WGBH-TV
WGBH-TV, channel 2, is a non-commercial educational public television station located in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. WGBH-TV is a member station of the Public Broadcasting Service , and produces more than two-thirds of PBS's national prime time television programming...
, Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
, and Wellesley College, and funded by Annenberg/CPB, and since then, has been aired frequently on PBS in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, developing a cult following
Cult following
A cult following is a group of fans who are highly dedicated to a specific area of pop culture. A film, book, band, or video game, among other things, will be said to have a cult following when it has a small but very passionate fan base...
for its romantic comedy
Romantic comedy film
Romantic comedy films are films with light-hearted, humorous plotlines, centered on romantic ideals such as that true love is able to surmount most obstacles. One dictionary definition is "a funny movie, play, or television program about a love story that ends happily"...
segments interspersed among grammar
Grammar
In linguistics, grammar is the set of structural rules that govern the composition of clauses, phrases, and words in any given natural language. The term refers also to the study of such rules, and this field includes morphology, syntax, and phonology, often complemented by phonetics, semantics,...
lessons.
In 2010, Yale University hosted a 25th anniversary reunion in celebration of the programme's success.
During the Second World War, Yale's Professor Emeritus of Romance Languages, Jean Boorsch, had produced for the American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
ASTP
ASTP
ASTP might refer to:* Apollo–Soyuz Test Project* Advanced Space Transportation Program* Army Specialized Training Program...
(Army Special Training Program) and the Navy V-12s
V-12 Navy College Training Program
The V-12 Navy College Training Program was designed to supplement the force of commissioned officers in the United States Navy during World War II...
(V-12 Navy College Training Program) an approach to oral French component, using an immersion technique that he published in 1944 as the "Méthode Orale de Français", remarkable for its precision.
Unanswered Questions
