Teachers' Quotes

The dialogues and speaking exercises are very well put together, both in terms of content and form - substantial, and realistic, yet clear and doable, while providing a sense of continual progress.

I also like the way the alphabet is introduced, gradually, with some nifty little exercises.

I love the use of menus as bilingual texts, providing learners who manage to crack the alphabet with an opportunity to practise their reading.
Haroon Shirwani, Head of Arabic, Eton College

I have used this successfully with a Sixth Form after School class. The content is very clear and well organised. Each chapter is broken down into small sections, which makes this book easy to use for teacher and student. There are some useful revision sections at the end of each section. The CD is very clear and reasonably slow so absolute beginners can keep up.
Anne Martin, Trinity School, reviewing the course for the SSAT Chinese Network

I find Talk French very good, especially used with the worksheets and tutor’s notes provided on the BBC site.
Magda Forrest

 
I’m planning to use Talk German in the autumn as Talk French was very successful in retaining my Beginners French students last year.
Averill Fraser

It's such great news about Talk French 2 coming out in July!!  I am a French tutor in an adult college and I have been using Talk French for many years for my beginners.  I love it, they love it especially when accompanied by the video and all the material I have downloaded from the website and bits of my own, to make the course great fun.
Véronique Harper

Your cd-rom Get into French stands the test of time.
It is engaging: students identify from the start with the 'actor' which is fun for them.
The situations are realistic ... and pertinent for students in the Hotel School. The scenes with exercises reinforce our class topics.
Exercises are colourful, user-friendly and relevant. 
Anne Brindley, School of Humanities, Galway-Mayo Institue of Technology

My small pupils love Salut Serge, learn the words and sing along almost immediately.
Judith Steinberg

The variety of skills practised and the quality of materials are excellent. It is great value for money and comes highly recommended!
Kathryn Williams, Freelancer from Aberdeen, in the ALL Journal Francophonie

I was pleased to see the planned repeats for this programme and will recommend Salut Serge to the teachers who are teaching French in the local network of schools working with the International Research and Learning Centre (ellnet.org).
Jo Cole, Wick CEVC Primary School

I especially like the French Grammar as I’ve never seen or used a book like it before. It looks as if the information will be easy to select as it’s all in clear chunks with brief explanations and up-to-date examples. Many of the teachers starting to teach French in primary schools do not have A level French and would find a grammar book like this very helpful.
Jo Cole, Wick CEVC Primary School

It looks good and is clearly set out with good, clear explanations and relevant examples. I really like the Wordpower sections - encouraging people to see patterns in the language is something I like to do myself - anything to make things stick for people. The Checkpoints are an excellent idea especially the way the exercises in each one get a bit harder and the Getting Started section is a great idea for encouraging people to be reflective learners as is showing people how to use a dictionary properly and drawing parallels between English and Spanish.

Alison Hayes, Senior Lecturer, York St John University

I value using the video material and exploiting it in class. Students have the book and can access that at home. Listening material is also very important and I welcome the online support materials as well as the book of exercises. The exercises in España Viva are varied, fun and practical.
Elaine Harnick

A professional, thorough and interesting course ... The tone of the course is set by the beautifully-filmed television programmes which make you want to catch the next plane out.
Dr Brian Hill, Times Educational Supplement

 I use BBC materials extensively and my Sueños 1 book has been so overused that it is falling to pieces. I currently teach about 100 students who are using the Sueños 1 book, bought at Waterstone’s Swansea.
Philip Ainsworth, Senior Lecturer at Swansea Institute of HE

Congratulations for Talk Italian (and other languages). An extremely good basic book, giving what is needed to students, very clear and excellent recordings. I use it as a supplement with Italianissimo 1.
Susanna Svagelj, Language Tutor in FE

I am now 4 weeks in to my beginners course and about to start  Ch3 of Talk Italian. So far the students have found it easy to follow and have enjoyed participating in the various activities. In particular "Now you're talking" has been very successful since the prompts are there for them.
Rhona Brown, East Surrey College 

I've been teaching Italian for 22 years, and Buongiorno was always a favourite ... It is one of the best language courses the BBC has produced.
Cintia Stammers

For complete beginners the book and tapes were most suitable. I liked the way that on tape the instructions in English were very clear so that students working on their own could easily find the place on the tape and in the book. The students and teacher found the musical cue before the key phrases amusing as well as useful for focusing their attention.
Janet Milligan

I am on to Term 3 with the Talk German and found it fitted very well with the OCN units the College has been using ie Food, Drink & Shopping: Accommodation & Travel: Tourism … the students have also received it well because it is not ‘cluttered’.
Ann Sadgrove

I like it a lot as it translates the examples and explains the grammatical points very clearly.
Claudia Strachan, Weald School

I have been teaching Greek at Shipley College for more than ten years and I have always used the BBC Greek Language and People book, cassettes and video. It is a very good course of study (and thousands of my ex and current students in Yorkshire will confirm!).
Makis Mertekis

I have been using BBC Talk Japanese for the beginners classes and I think it is an excellent book! It is extremely difficult to find Japanese text books that do not follow the Grammar->drill->test pattern but BBC Talk has a nice mixture of activities, is well structured and can be used at home which suits busy adults who cannot attend every class.
Mary Murata

As a retired teacher of languages, I’ve always had a very high regard for the many high quality courses the BBC has offered, and am introducing the group to lots of good things on the Learning Zone.
Sheena Munro, Inverness and Black Isle U3A Branch

I have been teaching Spanish, French and Portuguese for many years now. Thanks for the consistently high quality of your language programmes – it is appreciated!
Jill Szutenberg

Students appreciated the interactivity, instant feedback and wealth of listening and pronunciation practice.  With 24/7 availability and so much literally 'at their fingertips', LAYF provided a positive learning experience.
Angela Miller, Eurolang Co-ordinator, Cranfield University

The material is clear and visually attractive with up to date cultural notes in English and in the target language. Authentic video and audio text, with optional subtitles in both languages, illustrate the topics and link in with very clear grammar and vocabulary reference notes on essential points. This very comprehensive resource will fit any system.
It is both sophisticated and completely original and it will develop autonomy to help students become lifelong learners.
Diana Jimenez and Catherine Mahey, ISMLA Newsletter

At the LSE Language Centre, we have had for some time your Deutsch Plus and The French Experience videos, which have been a great success and used heavily by our students.
Jenny Gibbins, Teaching & Learning Facilitator, LSE Language Centre

These books are the mainstay of our beginners’ courses and we would hate to lose them.
Ruth Jones, Teaching Fellow, Languages in Lifelong Learning, University of Dundee

The listening passages avoid over-complexity (the drawback of many a GCSE textbook), are relatively short but practise the key vocabulary of the topic very intensively, and therefore constitute an ideal extension or reinforcement activity particularly when independent learning may be taking place ... The Talk 2 series struck me as being of potential use for secondary language teachers, either in the classroom or as part of an independent study programme, perhaps using a multimedia language lab.
Duncan Byrne, ISMLA Newsletter