FrenchSmart Workbooks
The FrenchSmart workbooks go from Grade 4 to Grade 8. The workbooks themselves are not a full curriculum. They are supposed to be supplementary to what’s being learnt in school. Still, they give an idea of what’s being covered in each grade – and all the grade levels were available for me to borrow through inter-library loans. The books have english pronunciations under all the new words, which makes them very user-friendly for parents whose first language is not French.
The Popular Book Company publishes different versions of this series. I found it really confusing figuring out what the difference was between them all, until I checked out a copy of each version from our local libraries.
FrenchSmart Tutor
FrenchSmart Tutor is the French Immersion set of workbooks. It’s not really suitable for us to use. It covers grammar, oral tests, reading tests etc. Useful to scan through, but not directly applicable for beginning French As a Second Language.
FrenchSmart
The default version of the workbooks has 16 units and 2 revision sections – approximately 120 pages. This is divided into two sections containing 8 units plus a revision chapter. The answer keys are at the back. Each unit covers a different vocabulary topic. There are also notes on grammar, but I would see these as good revision reminders, rather than a resource for your child to actually learn the grammar.
Canadian Curriculum FrenchSmart
This version has 8-10 units per workbook. It averages 80 pages instead of 120, compared to the FrenchSmart workbooks. The revision section is easier and has an additional crossword puzzle and wordsearch. This one is definitely too light for our needs.
Complete FrenchSmart
The complete series contains the same 16 units and 2 revisions as FrenchSmart, but it also adds
Story Time – L’heure du conte
Have fun with dialogues – Amusez-vous avec les dialogues
The additional material contains about 5 stories with comprehension questions which I think will be useful practice.
After looking at all the options that were actually available in our libraries, this is the set of workbooks we’ll be using as the basis of what we’re learning. I’ll use the Complete FrenchSmart workbooks to get the most value out of the series. I plan to use YouTube French teacher videos to cover basic grammar along with the topics that are in each workbook. We can then use the workbook to review the information we’ve learnt, and add in any extra worksheets I can find. As we progress, we will try some of the French Immersion workbooks we have access to aswell.