Micro French is a complete course of 24 programs taking beginners up to GCSE or O Level in French. It covers both spoken and written French and prepares students for the oral and written exam, as the programs include real speech. In common with the new GCSE exam, it emphasises practical French using passages from newspapers and signs found in France.

It is written by a team of French teachers and educational programmers headed by Genevieve Greville (an honours graduate) and Francois Aubry and a team of graphic designers headed by Roger Burg.

MICRO FRENCH is a complete course of 24 programs taking beginners up to GCSE or O Level in French. It covers both spoken and written French and prepares students for the oral and written exam, as the programs include real speech. In common with the new GCSE exam, it emphasises practical French using passages from newspapers and signs found in France.

It is written by a team of French teachers and educational programmers headed by Genevieve Greville (an honours graduate) and Francois Aubry and a team of graphic designers headed by Roger Burg.

The course covers spoken French vocabulary, verbs and grammar. The verbs and grammar programs are serious and intense with sophisticated error handling, and these are alternated with vocabulary and spoken French programs which are taught by games (including a graphics adventure game), puzzlers and pictures. The programs are usually on two disks or tapes called MICRO FRENCH 1 and MICRO FRENCH 2, and come with a voice tape, a manual and a book of exam papers to test yourself after you have completed the course. The subjects covered are:

• Pronunciation
• Colours
• Articles
• -er verbs
• Wordsearch in French
• -ir verbs
• Face vocabulary, learning by pictures
• -re verbs
• Signs and notices found in France
• -oir verbs
• Plurals
• Time, as required by the oral exam [*]
• 'Tour de France' graphics adventure game
• Oral exam
• Commands
• Adjectives
• Future tense
• Dictation
• Perfect tense
• Imperfect tense
• Opposites
• Comprehension test from a French newspaper with questions in English
• Direct object pronouns
• Comprehension test from an exam papers with question in French

LCL's 24 program courses (by software) are the original and only complete courses and contain an unlimited number of questions. Many thousands of students in Britain and all around the world have passed 'O' level, 'A' level or equivalent because of these courses, and, if you follow this course, the next one to pass could be you.

LCL Micro French is a complete course of 24 programs taking beginners up to GCSE or O-level in French. It covers both spoken and written French and prepares students for the oral and written exams. It is designed to be used as a computer-assisted learning aid in school or colleges or as a self-tuition or revision course for students, holidaymakers or travellers.

You will require a normal (audio) cassette recorder for the voice tape in the Pronunciation, Oral exam and Dictation programs.

To move to a new program after you decide to finish with the one you are using, press the ESCAPE key. You may do this at any time during the program run. For the cassette version, this will cause the next program to load. For the disc version, this returns you to the menu.

The course covers spoken French vocabulary, verbs and grammar. The verbs and grammar programs are serious and intense, and these are alternated with speech and vocabulary programs which are taught by games, puzzles and pictures. The programs are on two discs or tapes, called MICRO FRENCH 1 and MICRO FRENCH 2 and come with a Voice tape and a book of exam papers to test yourself after you have completed the course.

Micro French has quite sophisticated error handling to ensure you really learn from the programs. In all programs except Pronunciation, Word Search, Adventure Game and Oral exam, the following are used:

The first question of each screen is often done for you to show you what is required. If you still have no idea of the answer, just press RETURN. If you get the answer wrong (or have no idea) then you are told the correct answer. You must then answer that question again, the correct answer will disappear as soon as you start keying in.

If you getting it wrong, you can skip that question by pressing "?". Remember not to put any unnecessary spaces in your answers.

If you get any question wrong, even if you later corrected your answer, it will reappear in the next screen to double-check that you now understand. If you do not understand any answer, you can refer to the course notes by pressing "H" (for help) at the end of a screen.

Almost all the programs are different each time you use them, as the questions are chosen at random from data supplied.

The programs supplied are as follows:

Menu - Press the ESCAPE key to skip the title page. When the menu is loaded, press A to L depending on the program you require.

Pronunciation - When this program is loaded, put side 1 of the Voice tape in a tape recorder and press Play on the recorder. When you hear the word 'la', press RETURN. Speak aloud the word you hear and see on the screen, starting with 'la'. When the Voice tape ends you will see words on the screen that you should say aloud. If you forget the pronunciation, press "?" for a hint.

Colours - Key in the colour of the shape drawn on the screen. If you do not have colour, the name of the colour in English is given at the lower right hand side of the screen. If you do have colour, it is best not to look at this, as the programs in Micro French try to teach you to 'think in French' and not to translate word by word.

Articles - All nouns in French have a masculine or feminine gender. There are ways to help identify the gender of a noun and these are taught here. In addition to the error handling previously described, if you press "!" you will be given the meaning of the word.

-Er verbs - This covers regular and irregular -er verbs in the present tense.

Word Search - This is a word search type puzzle in French to teach you vocabulary in an enjoyable way. The words in the puzzle are first given with their meaning in English. They are all four-letter words. Press RETURN when the message is displayed then the puzzle is displayed. Look for those words in the puzzle. They can be displayed horizontally, vertically or diagonally. Type in the words you find and if you are right, the appropriate word in the puzzle will be underlined. When you would like a new puzzle, key in "ENCORE" (RETURN).

-Ir verbs - This covers regular and irregular -ir verbs.

Face Vocabulary - A face is drawn on the screen and an arrow points to a part of it. You must key in the word in French for what the arrow is pointing to, such as 'the eye' in French.

-Re verbs - This covers regular and irregular -re verbs in the present tense.

Signs and notices - This shows the type of sighs and notices you will meet in France and asks for the equivalent sign in English. If you think your translation was close enough then you can press "X" when the "Press C..." message is displayed to ensure your score is not unjustly low.

-Oir verbs - This covers -oir verbs in the present tense of which most are irregular.

Plurals - Key in plurals of the words shown.

Time - You are asked questions of the type you might meet in the oral exam, such as "What time do you get up?" in French and are given the answer required in numbers (like 7.30). You must key in the answer in words, using only those described in the course notes displayed.

Menu - As before, pressing ESCAPE key will remove the title page.

Tour De France Adventure Game - This is a graphics, adventure game in French, based on the 'Tour de France' cycle race. You are represented by a yellow-shirted figure on a racing cycle positioned on a map of France. You can move North, South, East or West by keying in au nord, au sud, a(grave) l'est or a(grave) l'ouest after the appropriate question. Possible answers are given in yellow, in brackets, after the statements of questions. The aim of the game is to reach Paris. Your energy and money is shown. If you run out of energy, the game ends. You may run out of moeny and continue, but if you try to buy a drink and have no money, the waiter calls the police and the game ends. If someone gives you a glass of water or you win a prize, remember to say thank you. (Key in MERCI (RETURN). A bell sound indicates you made a typing error.)

Oral exam - First you must fill in the form about yourself in English words or numbers, then press C. Then put side 2 of the Voice tape in your tape recorder and listen to the first question. Answer it by speaking aloud in French, then select the appropriate answer by pressing 1 to 4. You will then hear all the possible correct answers, depending on your personal details. Words that only you can supply are represented by a bell, the correct answer is 'Je m'appelle' followed by your name. This is displayed on the screen in full. The possible correct answers will not necessarily be in the same order as on the screen, as the program is designed to be different each time you use it, to prevent you cheating by remembering the position of the answer.

Commands - This teaches both commands and the simpler form of Future tense ('Je vais aller' type). This and all other verb programs are based on a game to make them more interesting. You are in a lift on the top floor of a department store, and on each floor there is a sign saying what must be done on that floor. You are telling someone what you, or someone else, will do on the next floor. Remember to look for the sign on the next floor (marked by the man in the lift).

Adjectives - Key in the noun and adjective together agreeing with each other.

Future Tense - This teaches the conventional future tense using the shop game described in the 'Commands' program.

Dictation - Place side 1 of the Voice tape in your tape recorder and play and then key in the word you hear. The spelling will depend on the context of the word, so a sentence is given on the screen with a dash to represent the word you hear.

Perfect tense - This teaches the perfect tense using the shop game described in the 'Commands' program. Remember to look for the sign on the previous floor above, not on your floor.

Imperfect tense - This teaches the imperfect tense using the shop game as above.

Opposites - Key in the opposite of the words shown.

Comprehension test 1 - This involves reading an article from a French newspaper; this is in keeping with practical French as required by GCSE. The important words are given by the first few questions and the rest you must learn to guess from their context. This is an important skill that must be used in both comprehension tests. The questions are in English. You can 'turn the pages of the newspaper' by pressing "N" to go to the next page or "B" to go back to the previous page.

Object pronouns - This teaches you the correct order for direct object pronouns in both statements and positive and negative commands. You must put the words shown in the right order. The first word shown is already in the right place to help you, do not move this word. Do not put in any unnecessary spaces, especially after punctuation.

Comprehension test 2 - This is a comprehension test taken from an exam paper, with the questions, this time, in French. As before, practise guessing the words from their context as any important words are given first. You can change pages, as before, by pressing "N" or "B".