LANGUAGE LESSONS

BBC Languages http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/french/ Audio, video and excellent lessons.

Bitesize French

Primary French - BBC

Elementary French Online (complete course if you get a free account)

Merlot – Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching http://www.merlot.org has a lot of links to good materials, as well as a database with reviews and details regarding system requirements and copyright. Pages specifically for French: http://www.merlot.org/merlot/materials.htm?category=2456&

The Internet Picture Dictionary. http://www.pdictionary.com/french/ features fill-in-the-blank, word scramble, and stinky spelling exercises for learning basic vocabulary (mostly nouns).

Accord exercices autocorrectifs http://www.didieraccord.com Just grammar exercises.

French in Action (course video)

French Pod Class http://www.frenchpodclass.com/ proposes to teach French via podcasts.

Jeu de l’oie http://jeudeloie.free.fr features a simple game which tests knowledge of French; various levels and grammar points.

Polarfle http://www.polarfle.com features a mystery simulation with texts, audio, pictures, quizzes, etc. for various levels.

 

AUTHENTIC IMAGES & MEDIA

REALIA — The Rich Electronic Archive for Language Instruction Anywhere offers an impressive collection of authentic images from French-speaking countries: http://dcollections.oberlin.edu/cdm4/realiasearch.php?CISOROOT=/realia (in Windows, use with IE for best results). Under Theme and Location Search, pull down Target language: to French; click Search.

Altavista http://fr.altavista.com/ has image, audio and video search that can limit hits to sites in France, which can be helpful. For images, however, if you don’t find what you need at Altavista, just try Google www.google.com; there will just be more chaff to sift through. SEW http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=2156251 offers a whole slew of media-search possibilities.

Internet Archive http://www.archive.org/ has a collection of images, audio, video, and text for “researchers, historians, scholars, and the general public.”

 

 

SEARCH ENGINES

Excite — http://www.excite.fr/

Francité — http://www.francite.com/

Lycos — http://www.lycos.fr/

La Toile du Québec — http://www.toile.com/

Voila — http://www.voila.fr/

Also—

France RealPlayer Browse the guide to find something.

 

REFERENCE

Surprisingly, TV5 Monde http://dictionnaire.tv5.org/ has one of the best online dictionaries we’ve found, with «définitions, synonymes, conjugaisons, style» and both French-English and English-French capabilities, as well as other French-language resources.

Dictionnaires — http://clicnet.swarthmore.edu/dictionnaires.html

Leximagne http://globegate.utm.edu/french/globegate_mirror/dico.html calls itself «l’empereur des pages dico».

Orthonet http://www.sdv.fr/orthonet/index.html offers advanced stylistic help (aimed at native speakers) with language usage and grammar.

Encyclopédies — http://french.about.com/od/encyclopedias/French_Encyclopedias_Encyclopdies_franaises.htm

Les Etats en chiffres http://www.atlas-francophone.refer.org/ is a very handy online atlas for finding statistics, etc.

 

CULTURE-INTENSIVE LESSON RESOURCES

CNC (Centre national de la cinématographie) http://www.cnc.fr/

Le Louvre http://www.louvre.fr/

Le Ministère de la culture http://www.culture.fr/ is the website of the Cultural Ministry of the French government.

Voyage Virtuel http://www.cortland.edu/flteach/civ/Voyage/voyage.htm features an introduction to French cities and regions with text and photos. Many regions are included; rich cultural content.

Many museums' sites have interactive pages with virtual visits.  Excellent for oral comprehension, oral presentation, etc.  For example the site of "la cité de l'histoire de l'immigration'' proposes a movie www.histoire-immigration.fr/

Le pavillon de l'arsenal (musée de l'architecture et de l'urbanisme) has a virtual visit www.pavillon-arsenal.com/home.php and architectural conferences on videos.

 

CONTENT-BASED LESSON RESOURCES

CoBaLTT (Content Based Language Teaching with Technology) http://www.carla.umn.edu/cobaltt/lessonplans/search.html Under “Stellar” Units, pull down to French and click Start Search. Many lesson plans do not themselves involve the internet, but it’s still a good resource.

Météo Consult http://www.meteoconsult.fr is an excellent weather site. Weather from parts of the world other than France is also available by searching.

Météo France http://www.meteofrance.com/FR/ is a site for France in particular.

Introduction to Baroque Art http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/romlang/art is an interesting site with French language lessons on Baroque Art designed for four different skill levels. The site features photos, text and non-computer exercises.

For arty material, LyrikLine http://www.lyrikline.org/index.php?id=59&L=2 - fr features Contempory poetry in French with text and sound. Poets from France, Côte d’Ivoire, Haïti, Switzerland, Canada, Belgium and Luxembourg are included.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, we have the Centre Astrologique http://www.astro.qc.ca from Quebec. Daily horoscopes can be fun.

Web Shopping (video)

NOT AVAILABLE as of July 10, 2009:The CISA project published this list of the best websites for children in German and French: http://www.net-consumers.org/erica/policy/topsites.htm

 

LITERATURE & LINGUISTICS

ABU (L’Association des Bibliophiles Universels) http://abu.cnam.fr/ has full online texts of works by dozens of French authors.

Baudelaire http://trackstar.4teachers.org/trackstar/ts/viewTrack.do?number=134965 is a lesson on «Invitation au voyage» and other poems.

Les Accents des Français http://www.accents-de-france.fr.st/ has sound files of French regional accents.

Oral Language Archive (audio conversations)

The ARTFL Project http://humanities.uchicago.edu/orgs/ARTFL/ is a scholarly resource for research in language and literature.

 

GEOGRAPHY & TRAVEL

Africa — http://www.lehman.cuny.edu/deanhum/langlit/french/afrique.html

Belgium — http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgique

Belgian government — http://www.belgium.be/fr/ is the official website of Belgium.

Connais-tu la France? http://www.france.learningtogether.net/ is a site devoted to French culture.

Promenade européenne http://www.europe.learningtogether.net/ is a site devoted to European culture.

Patrimoine canadien http://www.pch.gc.ca/index_f.cfm celebrates Canadian culture.

The Bibliothèque Tintamarre http://www.centenary.edu/french/links.html is devoted to French-speaking Louisiana.

Madagascar Le Guide http://www.madagascar-guide.com/madaguide2007/index.php has a tourist focus.

Tourist Martinique http://www.touristmartinique.com/ includes some historical information.

Morocco — http://www.maroc.net/

Senegal — http://www.gouv.sn/ is the official website of Senegal.

Locaflat http://locaflat.com/ is a search and rental service for apartment sublets in Paris.

Amity http://www.amity.org/ is “A Nonprofit Organization Dedicated to Building International Friendship and Cultural Understanding Through Teaching Exchange”.

 

NEWS & MEDIA

Le Monde http://www.lemonde.fr is the most prestigious French daily newspaper.

Le Monde Diplomatique http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/ has archived articles.

DNA (Dernières Nouvelles d’Alsace) http://www.dna.fr/ is a great example of a French regional newspaper.

Francophone Newspapers http://globegate.utm.edu/french/topics/newspapers.html is an exhaustive collection of web links to newspaper websites.

Francophone Magazines http://globegate.utm.edu/french/topics/magazines.html is an exhaustive collection of web links to magazine websites.

Fréquence Banane http://www.frequencebanane.ch/ is the site of a Swiss university radio station.

The site of TV station France 2 http://www.france2.fr/ offers news broadcasts via RealPlayer.

Ditto for France 3 :  Choose a news feature.

Francophone Business News http://globegate.utm.edu/french/globegate_mirror/frecnews.html is an exhaustive collection of web links.

Learning from francophone TV & Radio http://globegate.utm.edu/french/globegate_mirror/radiotv.html is Tennessee Bob’s collection of media links.

Le francais dans le monde http://www.fdlm.org/  full of articles already edited for lessons, " un dossier " every month. Very usefull

 

Typing accented characters on the Internet:

It’s easy on a Mac because it’s built into the Operating System; more awkward for Windows, where you can—

a)    Change to the International Keyboard (but that creates its own problems with apostrophes).

b)    Do your typing in a word processor (Microsoft Word, etc.), where accents are easier to enter, and copy/paste into the web browser.

c)     Try to enter the numeric codes manually with Alt+numeric keypad.

More details at: http://languagecenter.cla.umn.edu/lab/specialchars.php?page=french