Faves for French: product review of Storybridges to French

Today is a product review for a wonderful little resource called Storybridges to French. In the future there will be more of these kinds of reviews, as well as reviews for products that teach French to adults. (After all, we've got to stay une étape en avance of our kids!)

This is a little gem I found at my local library. I'm not sure exactly how I happened on it. French materials in our public library system can be somewhat tricky to locate. But you can isolate items according to audiovisual and children's categories, so that may have been how I dug it up. I initially borrowed it long before my efforts to teach French became as serious as they are now.

My kids love to listen to tapes on a Little Tikes tape recorder they received from their grandma a few years ago. A quick Google search reveals they aren't as easy to come by as they used to be, but probably worth hunting down on eBay. Our kids listen to little stories on tape and are just as excited about them as videos. I loved the Storybridges to French tapes the first time I heard them. Because they're oral, they make learning French accessible to children before they can read. The creator, Veronica Foster, and her two children Sydney and Sadie retell several well-known fairytales and fables--six in all: Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Little Red Riding Hood, The Turtle's Music, The Nightingale, The Shoemaker and the Elves, and Peter and the Wolf. (There are Spanish, ESL and German versions as well, and the Spanish and ESL versions have more stories.)

Ms. Foster tells the stories in English, interspersed with French. She calls it "gradual immersion" because she builds from story to story, gradually using more and more French. It's quite brilliant, really. After each story is a short review or some questions. With the help of Sydney and Sadie, she encourages children to listen to and repeat the French even if they don't understand the words at first, because that's how we learned our first language. But the context of the stories makes the French readily understood, and very easy to learn. The speaking is very clear, and broken down into manageable little chunks.

The only small complaint I have is that quite frequently, Ms. Foster uses the phrase "Oh, mon Dieu," and has the children repeat it. I understand that this is a realistic part of French culture, but since we've taught our children not to say "Oh my God" in English, it came as quite a shock to them when they heard the English interpretation of this phrase. The only other note I'll make here is that the stories are Ms. Foster's own original adaptations. If you're a purist, you may not appreciate that there's no gobbling of the grandmother in Little Red Riding Hood, for example. Instead, the grandmère offers le loup le poulet that le petit chaperone rouge brings her, and they all sit down for a picnic.

I had hoped to own a copy of Storybridges. It now comes on CD, and if you buy directly from Ms. Foster, you get a teacher CD with each story CD that has transcripts of the stories, games and tests, and more.

I must confess at this point, that although I probably couldn't count the money I've spent on French teaching and learning resources, I'm a relentless bargain hunter, and almost refuse to pay full price for anything. I waited and searched and finally found Storybridges--a retired library copy--used on Amazon for less than $13.00. Granted, I have the cassette version, not the CDs, and I have no additional learning resources, but I'm so happy we finally own this wonderful resource.