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Les Portes Tordues
Les Portes Tordues: The Scariest Way in the World to Learn French!
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Les Portes Tordues, by Kathie Dior

From Laura K. Lawless,
Your Guide to French Language.
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The Scariest Way in the World to Learn French!

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Les Portes Tordues: The Scariest Way in the World to Learn French is a unique book aimed at upper beginning and intermediate students. In fact, it is so unique that it's rather difficult to categorize, because it's a French-English bilingual book, grammar book, and audio book all rolled into one.
Les Portes Tordues recounts the mysterious adventures of a girl and boy trapped in a scary house with twisted doors, and is illustrated with 37 Victorian-like black-and-white illustrations. But there's much more to Les Portes Tordues than just the story! Each chapter contains the following:

  • Passage from the book, in French and English
  • Audio track of the French passage
  • List of tricky vocabulary
  • Grammar lesson (mainly verbs and idiomatic expressions)
  • Grammar quiz
  • Answers to quiz
The first 12 chapters cover basic French grammar in short, easy passages. From chapter 13 on, the story passages get progressively longer and more difficult, and the grammar lessons are very cleverly incorporated into the story itself. For example, in order to open locked doors, the protagonists have to recite certain vocabulary lists or verb conjugations that were discussed in earlier chapters. In the last chapters of the book, a thorough grammar and vocabulary review is woven into the story. Instructions within each chapter are written in a friendly yet distinctly professorial style. A French-to-English vocabulary list and index completes the book.

On the audio CD, the narrator (a native French-speaking university instructor) dramatically recites the French with a different voice for each character. The narrator's recitation is clear and fairly slow - intermediate students shouldn't have any trouble understanding.

Although Les Portes Tordues is written for upper beginning- to intermediate-level students, with a little creative thinking it can be used by just about anyone: absolute beginners can practice listening while following along in the book, to get used to the sound and appearance of French; teachers can use it during story time - listen to a chapter or two, review the grammar, lead a discussion, and then pass out photocopies of the text; etc.

The 150+ page book is available in your choice of a perfect or wire-o binding. The audio CD is just over an hour long and each chapter sits on one track, so it's easy to stop and start again right where you left off. Les Portes Tordues is self-published, so the only way to buy it is directly from the author. To learn more about Dr. Kathie Dior, read and listen to a sample chapter, and order the book, please visit the Portes Tordues website (or call 1-877-622-3176 or 1-765-471-2249) - but watch out for twisted doors! :-)
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