Rocket French Review
-- Rocket French Review --
What Is Rocket French? Rocket French is an interactive French learning program. It consists of 45 grammar lessons + 31 interactive audio lessons + interactive Mega software which include audio, grammar and word building games. -- Rocket French Review --
Who's It For? Rocket French is suitable for complete beginners (young students and adults) to advanced intermediates or maybe those who learnt a while ago and need the confidence to get back into learning French. Or perhaps you simply want to brush up and improve what you already know. Then Rocket French might suit you perfectly. -- Rocket French Review --
Method Of Use: Rocket French comes in two main formats: - Downloadable software for PC or Mac. or Tip: Buying the CD's is going to cost you more so do the download option if you can. -- Rocket French Review --
My First Impressions: I opted for the PC download. You could either download individual lessons or download the whole package all at once. I opted to do the latter. Be aware that it can take a while to download and in my case it took more than an hour so go make yourself a drink and do something else whilst you're waiting. Once downloaded you are presented with a table of contents (i.e. the lessons of which there are 45). Clicking on any one of them opens up that lesson. You can change the size of the text and scroll through the various pages for each lesson by using the hand shaped tool. Each lesson consists of several parts which cover mainly grammar, vocabulary, audio and pronunciation.
The speaker is female and has both excellent English and French pronunciation - in fact I couldn't' tell whether she was French or English! Following that you are givne mini tests and activities such as filling in the blanks and translating. These mainly take the form of worksheets which you can print off and work on independantly of the computer. At the end of the lesson you are presented with the corrections. It would have been nicer to be able to type the answers on the screeen and to have them self corect as opposed to me manually doing it. You can also download the audio sessions to your mp3 player for listening to at your leisure. One great aspect is the 'Random Audio' button which when pressed allows you to hear a phrase at random taken from the current lesson. It is a great way for testing or revising.
This is a great motivator to see the lessons being ticked off as 'Done'. When I needed a change of pace, I headed towards the Mega French Software Games links. There is a choice of vocabulary building, audio and verb games. The games are all interactive and will score you so you can see how you are doing. All the games were easy to follow and just the right length and level to keep you on your toes. I found the verb games particularly challenging and it made me realise that I still have a way to go. -- Rocket French Review -- What I Liked About Rocket French-- Rocket French Review --
Final Thoughts
Rocket French is extremely well suited to beginners and early intermediate learners. It is very well laid out, easy to use and definitley good value for money. If I was a beginner this is what I would go for.
Read Other Rocket French Review (August 2009)
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