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Web Site of the Month |
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May 2008 -Jean-Marc
B. [J.-M. Bassetti],
À la découverte de Jean de La Fontaine,
<http://www.lafontaine.net/nouveau-site/index.php>
À la
découverte de Jean de La Fontaine is
more than just a transcription of the
most famous of the French fabulist’s
works. This site is a mine of resources
one can use to introduce students from
elementary school to college to the
pleasures of reading La Fontaine. First,
the home page opens every day to a
different illustration by Willy
Aractingi, the website’s featured
artist. Then, if you sign up, you will
receive a fable by e-mail every morning.
That’s only the appetizer to this
gourmet menu. La Fontaine’s entire work
is present here: the fables, the tales,
his correspondence, theatre, opera, and
prose writings. It is easy to search and
find fables, either by entering keywords
(e.g. cigale, corbeau) in the search box
conveniently located in the upper right
of the home page, or by navigating the
menu buttons: click on “Oeuvre intégrale”
(second button) , then choose “Fables”
and select one of the search options:
volumes, alphabetical order, length of
the fables, characters, animals,
morality and sayings. Each fable comes
with a brief presentation of the story,
explanatory footnotes, and links to
other fables or external resources. The
third button, “Vie, Époque”, is devoted
to information on La Fontaine’s personal
life and his relationships to famous
17th century figures. The fourth button,
“Illustrateurs” is a dossier on the
artists who illustrated the fables –
Doré, Grandville, Loukine, and Aractingi
of course. Also included are textbooks
and postcards published in the 19th and
20th centuries. The fifth menu, “A
l’ombre de La Fontaine” is devoted to
activities and games designed around the
fables, as well as to La Fontaine’s
followers, links, books, etc. Finally,
for those who teach in elementary
schools, the last menu is especially
designed for children. The quality of
the transcription is excellent, which
makes this site ideal for school use.
The print format allows high quality
projection on a screen or a whiteboard.
Some fables come with a translation in
English, Italian, or Spanish. The
author, who discretely signs Jean-Marc
B., invites collectors, teachers,
students, performers, and ordinary
readers to contribute to enriching the
site. This is definitely the most
complete, user-friendly, and elegant La
Fontaine website available for French
teachers.
D. Trudeau
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April 2008 - Looking for that extra
something to drive a grammar point home
to each of your students? Try
Tex’s French Grammar! This
interesting site uses creative means to
explain virtually every aspect of
grammar, even articles! You will find
audio for students to listen to,
cartoons, MP3 files, and podcasts that
highlight each grammar point.
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March 2008 -
Always looking for a song to illustrate
a grammar point? Go to this website
where you can search songs by
grammatical point. Lyrics and audio
files are ready to be used, thus there
is no need to go find them or bring them
to class. The lyrics are included with
blank spaces that students have to fill
out—usually multiple choices are
offered. The songs are not the most
recent ones, but they are perfect to
bring a wide variety in your daily
teaching.
http://platea.pntic.mec.es/7Ecvera/hotpot/chansons/index.htm |
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February 2008 - Useful
Website To Teach Directions
The Official Website for
the City of Paris,
http://www.parisinfo.com, includes
several useful and user-friendly links
that can help you design real-world
activities around the themes of finding
your way around Paris, asking for
directions, or getting from point A to
point B. From the homepage, click on
Transports & Plans. There, you
will find all the information needed to
plan an excursion around the city, using
all the means of transportation
available. In particular, check out
the link Se repérer sur un plan.
Click on the map. Enter a location or a
street address in the finder tool. A
secondary map opens along with a list of
shops, restaurants, and other businesses
in and around that location. You have
the option to see the map, find out how
to get there or how to come back from
there. When you want to find out how to
get to a specific landmark and/or street
address, from another location, a
complete itinerary appears, detailing
every turn on every street, and of
course, using the useful vocabulary that
your students can practice.
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December
2007 -
http://abu.cnam.fr
If you are
looking for public domain versions of
French literature the site ABU: La
Bibliothèque Universelle sponsored by
the Association des Bibliophiles
Universels and the Conservatoire
Nationale des Arts et Métiers (http://abu.cnam.fr
) provides full versions of text that
may be downloaded free of charge with no
copyright infringement provided that the
conditions of use are respected. In
existence since 1993 the site contains
approximately 288 works by 101 authors.
The works are catalogued by author or by
text. The corpus of texts can also be
searched according to key words. The
conditions of use documents the accepted
uses and specifies how the abu source
must be cited in all photocopies and
other print versions used in educational
settings. This license or conditions of
use form may be printed to keep on file
for accreditation and other
institutional compliance committees. The
home page is clearly organized and
includes a contact email:
abu@cnam.fr. Note: The version of
Cyrano de Bergerac is particularly
useful for those teachers who show the
film starring Gerard Depardieu as it can
be used as a support for viewing the
film.
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November 2007 -
http://www.lepointdufle.net/
Looking for grammar-based Internet
activities for your students to complete
in the language lab or at home? This
easy-to-navigate site has indexed
hundreds of other sites from around the
globe that you and your students will
find useful. Interactive grammar
exercises and explanations of grammar
topics are categorized by topic. You can
also find many sites related to skills
practice, vocabulary and culture.
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October
2007 -
www.francparler.org/dossiers
Branch out of the US to discover this
communauté mondiale des professeurs de
français! These dossiers provide
both theoretical and practical ideas for
injecting new energy into the classroom,
from bandes dessinées to blogs.
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September 2007 -
http://www.mangerbouger.fr/index2.php
Check out this great site, if you’re
studying food, health or nutrition! It’s
a national program in France to promote
healthier food habits. The site has
excellent materials that can be used in
class, including advertising used in
different media formats.
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May
2007
- www.langwitches.org – Created by
Sylvia Tolisano, a foreign language
teacher and instructional technologist,
this site is an excellent resource for
those interested in using technology in
language instruction. You’ll find
project ideas, tutorials to learn skills
like podcasting and digital moviemaking,
useful links and more. There are also
links to the Langwitches blog, wiki and
podcast.
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April 2007 - TV5 Monde: Musique
This site is a wonderful resource for fans of French and Francophone music! Each week they feature 3 songs with accompanying video, lyrics, and lesson plans. There is a large selection of archived songs to search from as well.
For students: http://www.tv5.fr/TV5Site/musique/paroles.php
For teachers: http://www.tv5.fr/TV5Site/enseignants/musique.php
Be sure to also check out the home page for the video jukebox, clips from top 10 songs, and l’invité de la semaine: http://www.tv5.fr/TV5Site/musique/francophone.php
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March 2007 -
http://www.bonjourdefrance.com
This
website’s description states, “Bonjour
de France
est un « cyber-magazine » éducatif gratuit. il contient des
exercices, des tests et des jeux pour apprendre le français ainsi
que des fiches pédagogiques à l’attention des enseignants de
français langue étrangère (FLE). ˝
It has a large collection of reading comprehension
samples for varying ability levels, with audio recordings and
grammar explanations,
overt grammar activities, thematic vocabulary lessons, pedagogical
tools, idiomatic explanations, collaborative exercises with another
school, world news, and games!
The site is a virtual treasure trove of wonderful ideas and tools
that will benefit students of all levels and their teachers!
Amusez-vous bien avec ce site merveilleux!
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February 2007
- Try listening to a podcast!
You can visit:
http://www.rfi.fr/communfr/dynamiques/podcasting.aspx?rubrique=lffr
And subscribe to
the Journal en français facile. You can even go back and
access the script:
http://www.rfi.fr/lffr/articles/001/script_journal_francais_facile.asp
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January 2007 -
Ma
France -
http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/french/mafrance/
This incredibly
rich interactive video site from the BBC languages web site is
completely free. Made for intermediate language learners, it
contains 24 theme-based units, each containing a video shot in
France, 2 quizzes based on the video, plus games and other
activities, vocabulary lists and grammar explanations.
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December 2006 - Solving
a Mystery
A neat website for students to
practice their language skills by being detectives and solving a
mystery.
http://www.polarfle.com/
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November 2006 - Looking for current, interesting, manageable,
and authentic reading material for your students? Then check out
this site that holds a host of challenging and interesting topics!
www.lesclesjunior.com is a site based on the popular news
magazine Les Clés de l’Actualité Junior. This site has a host
of articles that are of manageable length, are challenging, and most
of all, interesting for our students! The site is divided into
categories with new articles every day. There is even a search
feature that allows users to find articles that go back several
years. Teachers will even be happy to know that there is a photo of
the day, with French captioning, that can be the stimulus for a
class discussion or bell-ringer activity. This website is very
thorough and even includes a section for the teacher with many more
educational activities that are already created and easy to use!
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October 2006 - Looking for some links to helpful French
websites? Try:
T-Bob’s French links:
http://www.utm.edu/departments/french/french.html
Jim Becker’s French links:
http://www.uni.edu/becker/french31.html
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September 2006 -
Espace Francophone
www.espacefrancophone.org/
This website was
created and is maintained by the Cultural Service of the Consulate
General of France in New Orleans. One of the wonderful resources
provided by the site includes a variety of French videos and media
programming that can be downloaded free of charge [many come with
prepared exercises and activities]. You can even subscribe to a
podcast so that their programs can be downloaded automatically to
your computer. Information on France, Francophonie, Louisiana and
Immersion is also available.
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