So Much to Learn...So Little Time

A Nifty Widget for Learners of French

I've just been mucking around in Yahoo widgets (thanks to Mashable) and came across this Yahoo! widget which enables the user to access 52 Francophone web-streamed radio stations from around the French speaking world.

The list of stations includes all the Radio France serious ones, plus stations such as Fun Radio and NRJ which would appeal more to our students. On a personal level I am pleased to see that Radio Nova is in there. I listened to this all day every day when I lived in France and I blame it for my interest in African music, brilliantly eclectic (or it was back then) and very weird. You also get the benefit of programme info on a lot of the stations.

As a language teacher I'm constantly on at students to get as much experience as possible at listening to a foreign language...even if they don't understand everything. Its a simple matter of getting the ear atuned to the rhythm of the language. By installing this widget students have an enormous, easily accessible choice of French listening material. Listening for pleasure, no task attached, just listen and see what you can understand.


Technorati Tags: yahoowidgets, radiofrance, radionova, funradio, nrj, listening, learning, language, french

Something for A/H French

Hugo* is one of my Flickr contacts and produces wonderful examples of photo journalism. This weekend saw a demonstration in support of the homeless in Paris broken up in typical fashion by the Paris police. Hugo* was there and has produced an wonderfully human photo story, see embedded slideshow.
However this series of pictures could be used as a fantastic resource in H / AH, A'Level French when looking at the topic of homelessness or even simply protest. On the photo set's Flickr page, Hugo* has also included the article to which his photo's contributed. Every picture tells a story. Students could use individual pictures to describe emotions or use the whole show to produce their own news article. What could be more up to date and immediate than using 2 day old flikr photos.
What is wonderful is that these photos are free to use for non-commercial purposes and without alteration as long as Hugo Leglise-Bataille is credited.
Thanks Hugo*.

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Photos by Hughes Leglise-Bataille