Hide & Speak French

Designed to help young children learn to speak French, this book is organised thematically and calls itself an ‘interactive picture word book’. Each theme is given a double spread and comprises, on the right hand side, a list of nine ‘key’ French words (with pronunciation) each with a small picture prompt and, on the left hand side, a half page colour picture and nine simple sentences (phrases in the case of colours) using the key words. The 15 themes range from parts of the body through various home-based topics to visits to such places as the seaside and the zoo.

At the back of the book are two wipe-clean flaps which can be used to cover the list of words or corresponding pictures so that the user can try saying or writing each word. Hence ‘look, cover and speak’ or ‘look, cover and write’: the latter being one of the ways many children are shown to help them learn to spell English words.

Learning French from a book is never the ideal and a child would require a fair amount of interaction with a French speaker for this to work. It seems to me that, rather than a book, a CD rom of the book in which the words were spoken for repetition and imitation would make it more effective and much more fun. Failing that, a cassette sold with the book would greatly enhance its effectiveness.