The required course materials for French 1411 (Beginning French I), 1412 (Beginning French II), and 2311(Intermediate French I) at all campuses in the HCCS are Vis-à-vis and its Cahier d’exercices, now in a third edition. This textbook and workbook, published by McGraw-Hill and available in the Central Bookstore, offer a balance of structural analysis and communicative practice. At Central, we also have a multimedia language lab where students can enhance their learning via computer, such as by using (1) the MHELT (McGraw-Hill Electronic Language Tutor) program and (2) the Vis-à-vis student CD-Rom, both installed on most of the computers in the lab. Fortunately, Vis-à-vis also has its own publisher-sponsored web pages, where students can do (3) online exercises that complement each chapter of the book, namely the ‘Paroles’ and ‘Structures’ activities. As the computers in the lab are also connected to the Internet, students can access these exercises there as well. Students are expected to do all of these three types of computer exercises for every chapter covered during the semester.

Many course materials, including some very helpful titles (such as a copy of the Vis-à-vis CD-Rom), are on reserve at the library. The Cahier d’exercices, a workbook packaged with the main text, has both written and listening exercises. In order to do the listening portion of each chapter’s exercises, students are provided a data CD containing digital audio files that correspond to every chapter’s listening exercises found in the workbook. Using a sound-ready computer with either external speakers or a mini-jack headset, students browse this CD to locate a chapter’s audio files and play them in a program such as the Windows Media Player.