Bread-and-butter French - and well worth its salt

In the current climate of educational computerthink. it's not surprising that most commercial foreign-language packages in some way aspire to 'teaching without tears'. The emphasis these days is firmly on having fun - a key word in language-learning blurb.

On the other hand. Dean Associates' French Revision - as the unimaginative title implies - makes no concession to gimmick. It involves no new revolutionary or effortless method, no glossy spruced-up system. It's a workaday bread-and-butter package for CSE, O Level and 16 plus. As such, it's well worth its salt.

Using nothing more sophisticated than the well-tried method of filling in blanks in French sentences and a rudimentary scoring system, the program covers a range of grammatical problems encountered in school French without any attempt to disguise the fact that grammar is problematic and that, when all is said and done, it can only be properly dealt with head-on.

So with a refreshingly traditional approach both in the comprehensive documentation and on the menu screens, the author of the package unashamedly uses language to talk about language.

He's not scared of phrases like "conjunctive accusative pronouns" or "partitive negative articles". Not that the user need be bothered with such terms in order to benefit from the program. But he or she won't get far with the more advanced exercises unless there has been some genuine understanding of the concept involved. And in my book, that is as it should be.

There are four levels - called grades - to choose from, sold separately on cassette, or bundled together on two discs.

Grade D - the lowest - deals with nouns, adjectives and simple tenses.

Grade A - the highest - touches on some of the subtleties of conditional clauses, present participles, and the like.

Within each grade there are groups of exercises of increasing difficulty. Tests begin with two or more examples showing the format of a problem, and the sentences to be completed are then presented in random order.

With a good score in any group of sentences, you're prompted to progress to the next group - otherwise you're obliged to do them again, though Break returns you to the main menu at any time.

Average O Level candidates will find many hours of work - and perhaps, despite everything, even some fun - in this methodical program. Teachers can confidently recommend it to their pupils taking exams for CSE and above.

Gabriel Jacobs