FRENCH BROADCASTS
sir,-The material for the French broadcasts to schools, as provided in the broadcast books, even if rather earnest, is on the whole good-lively, contemporary, and calculated to make boys and girls fee] that French is a language used as they use English. The songs are popular and the recordings good, but the delivery of the body of the lesson seems to argue either a complete indifference to the receiving end, or at least a lack of contact with it, as well as being a waste of good French voices. As each line drags its interminably laborious length along, with perfect enunciation, completely stripped of life and personality, pupils have leisure to wonder, "Do French people speak like this? If so, I’m not interested; if not, why have the broadcasts?" and the result is ridicule or boredom, or both. M. Jourdain, to a teacher hoping that Form 6 will find Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme fast-moving and amusing, was definitely a last straw, and the New Zealand counterpart of Marie would rather stay at home than be accompanied by so tedious a compariion on her trip on the underground. Ten years of listening to such delivery would be no equipment for speaking French to French people or for seeing and understanding a French film. After all, the lessons are meant for senior pupils with the text in front of them, and should surely accustom them to the rhythms and tempo of French speech, even at the cost of a word missed here and there.
K. F.
McLEOD
(Lower Hutt).
Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19530807.2.12.1
Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka
New Zealand Listener, Volume 29, Issue 734, 7 August 1953, Page 5
Word count
Tapeke kupu
258FRENCH BROADCASTS New Zealand Listener, Volume 29, Issue 734, 7 August 1953, Page 5
Using this item
Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi
Material in this publication is protected by copyright.
Are Media Limited has granted permission to the National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa to develop and maintain this content online. You can search, browse, print and download for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from Are Media Limited for any other use.
Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
Copyright in the Denis Glover serial Hot Water Sailor published in 1959 is owned by Pia Glover. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this serial and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the Listener. You can search, browse, and print this serial for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from Pia Glover for any other use.
Log in