The Foreign Service Institute has developed a series of language-learning courses for use by the state department and other government agencies. These courses have been developed, tested by use, and improved over a period of many years. Working with the Departments of Defense, Education, other government agencies, and various universities, the Foreign Service Institute has created the largest body of complete courses for languages of the world available anywhere.

This course produced by the Foreign Service Institute as part of its Basic Course series, provides introductory through intermediate level material. The goal of Foreign Service Institute courses is to provide the English Speaking student's from any occupational background with practical knowledge and proficiency in their language of interest.

The Cantonese Basic Coarse is a course in spoken Cantonese, with the subject matter of the course dealing with daily life in Hong Kong. Cantonese is the principal language of Kwangtung province in Southeast China, parts of neighboring Kwangsi province, Hong Kong, and Macao; it is also spoken by many people in Southeast Asia, and is the original language of many Chinese-American, with some 50 million people in the world speaking it. It has many dialects, but the Prestige variety, spoken in Canton, is standard, and is used over a wide area, including Hong Kong, and these course are made in the Prestige dialect. The course is designed as an intensive language program of 25-30 class hours and uses all the basic grammatical structures of the language and a vocabulary of approximately 950 words. There are 30 lessons in the course, and the rate of progress in an intensive course is expected to be approximately 2 lessons per week, including time for review and testing.

The underlying method of this CD ROM course is guided imitation, and the aim is automaticity. The ultimate goal of the course is to speak the target language accurately and easily. The course provides for the assimilation of all basic forms and patterns of the language by the guided imitation, memorization, and manipulation of a large number of sentences and by practice of common everyday situations. But actual living use of the language in free conversation is necessary and essential. The student is encouraged to use the language in every way possible. Constant use of the skills in this course will help the learner master the language and retain it.

This course concentrates on speech and grammar. The following constituents make up a sample unit:

Course Structure

1. With Basic Sentences, Structure Sentences, Useful Words, the course provides the students with sentences in the target language. The student should repeat the material introduced, repeating each item (a build-up or a sentence) twice. The student repeats the item immediately after trying to imitate the pronunciation. After the Basic Sentences have been thoroughly memorized the student can go on to the dialogues. This drill is to be continued until the student can go through the dialogue like an actor.

2. Substitution, Correlation and Transformation Drills are to be used in accordance with the instructions given at the beginning of each drill.

3. Model Transform Drills should be drilled in the same way as other Transformation Drills.

4. Questions and Answers are to be drilled as specified. Some questions may require informational answers, some others simply 'yes' or 'no ' answers. Questions requiring informational answers are to be drilled as follows: The dialogue asks each student a question. The student repeats the question and gives an answer. The dialogue then gives the student the opportunity to answer and the student repeats it as a further drill. Questions requiring 'yes' or 'no' answers should be drilled in the same way, i.e. the student repeats the question after the recording and then gives either an affirmative or a negative answer.

5. With the Narrative, the student goes through sentences that illustrate new vocabulary terms. The students have thus familiarized themselves with the new words the recording goes through the whole Narrative at a natural speed. The student listens for comprehension,and then summarizes in English as much as is understood of the Narrative. This drill is continued until the students are thoroughly familiar with the material. The recording then asks questions listed at the end of each Narrative and the student answers them as completely as possible using words contained in the Narrative.