The all-in-one textbook/workbook is the centerpiece of our language curriculum. With essential vocabulary, grammar fundamentals and up-to-date cultural information, our core text is everything you need for a full year’s course. Upon completion of our three-level series, students will have practiced every important topic in French and have the confidence to read, write, and speak fluently.
Featuring thoughtful exercises, an exciting adventure series, authentic audio from native speakers, and a comprehensive testing program, our curriculum offers everything needed for language mastery.
Breaking the French Barrier is available in both print or online formats. Many students purchase both to access the unique learning tools available through Breaking the French Barrier Online.
LEVEL 1 (BEGINNER)
Our level 1 book assumes no prior knowledge of French. The “First Steps” lesson also presents all the sounds of the French language so that students can develop an authentic accent.
- Theme-based, simple words and vocabulary offers students opportunities to learn words relevant to their daily lives at home, school, and beyond.
- An action-packed dialogue series appears throughout the book offering students reading and listening comprehension practice.
Throughout the chapters, easy-to-understand explanations unravel these essential building blocks of language:
- nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, conjunctions, and prepositions
- the present, passé composé, imperfect, and progressive tenses
- formal command
Click here to view a sample chapter of the print book or here to view a sample online chapter.
Click here for the table of contents.
LEVEL 2 (INTERMEDIATE)
Our Level 2 text first reviews key grammar topics to ensure that all students have a strong grounding in the present, passé composé and imperfect tenses.
- New lists of vocabulary further expand students’ ability to describe the world around them
- An adventure series also is featured in Level 2 as characters travel to exciting new places with unexpected twists and turns
- The new material in Level 2 includes:
- the future, conditional, present perfect, the pluperfect, present subjunctive, and the pluperfect subjunctive tenses
- indefinites, demonstratives, and reflexive pronouns
- informal commands, comparisons
Click here to view a sample chapter. Click here for the table of contents.
LEVEL 3 (ADVANCED)
Our Level 3 / Advanced book targets students in their 3rd or 4th year of French. It is a text that highlights all the key grammar found on AP, SAT II, IB, or college placement tests.
- Continuing the strategies established in the first two books in the series, the Advanced Level begins by reviewing the major present, past, conditional and future tenses.
- Cultural articles with comprehension exercises help students get to know stories from people around the world. You will also find the following grammatical concepts:
- all perfect tenses, including the present perfect, pluperfect, future perfect and conditional perfect
- the subjunctive mood (with commands, verbs of emotion, hypothetical situations, adverbial phrases)
- comparatives, the passive voice, “if clauses,” punctuation, and uses of the infinitive
- intriguing vocabulary, with special focus on adjectives in early chapters, followed by nouns, verbs, and idiomatic expressions
Our Advanced book makes certain that every student – whether formally enrolled in school or studying independently – has all the rules he or she will ever need to know about the French language. It fully equips students for a lifetime of pleasurable and authentic contact with the Francophone world.
Click here to view a sample chapter. Click here for the table of contents.