Excuse my French is a new four part 'Réalité TV' documentary appearing on our screens from Tuesday 18th July at 9 pm on BBC2. Filmed on location in France, the show documents how over a month, celebrities Esther Rantzen, Marcus Brigstocke and Ron Atkinson cope with an immersion course in French language and culture. On the official Marcus Brigstocke website, the comedian describes the experience as being a real laugh ‘none of that hee-haw, hee-haw stuff … It's the thinking man's Faking It'.
To accompany the series, the BBC have produced a DVD and a course book written by Steven Fawkes, Past President of The Association for Language Learning.
The book
- is divided into relevant topics such as shopping, socialising and getting around
- provides your students with useful techniques to cope in unfamiliar situations
- sets them challenges and tasks to develop their skills
- gives links to free online activities and extra resources
The DVD
- includes all four programmes originally broadcast on BBC TWO
- is supplemented withadded interactivity, audio, and supported material based on the book
- demonstrates that effective language learning must include a cultural perspective
Pre order from the BBC Shop before the official release date of 9th August 2006. If you can't wait, why not check out the video clips on the Excuse my French website:
- Meet the students
- Skipping class
- Ron's restaurant hunt
- Marcus tries a joke
You can even rate the programme as either 'Chronique', 'Mal', 'Raisonnable', 'Bien' or 'Fantastique' depending on your point of view. Finally, there's the Excuse my French challenge where you choose either Ron, Marcus or Esther to ask you language questions on each of the four programmes 'Travel', 'Cuisine', 'Tourism' and 'Public speaking'.
Also new from the BBC is the launch of Ma France a brand-new French broadband video course. The first five units of this exciting interactive resource are now available on the BBC languages website and encourage you to 'improve or brush up your basic French’. The course consists of 24 interactive video units in total which were filmed around Lyons, the Alps and in Provence. It is presented by Stéphane Cornicard.
Each unit includes:
- a transcript
- a quiz
- grammar notes
- vocabulary notes
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