In the latest guest post in the Technology in Modern Foreign Languages series, Andrea Henderson explains how she uses authentic, real-world resources to expose her students to French culture. In addition, she helpfully explains how she organises and manages the vast amount of resources available which she is able to find using the internet.

There has never been a better time to be a world language teacher. Every day there is new information to make teaching even more exciting. My PLN (Personal Learning Network) on Twitter has been a wonderful source of new ideas and resources and this has made me grow in ways I had not imagined.

However, there are so many tools, gadgets, websites, and applications to choose from that it can be difficult to know exactly where to begin. To best take advantage of this new technology, it is a good idea to create a filter so that you know exactly which information you can use of right away and which information you can file away for later.

The American Council on Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) created national standards for language learning which focus on the areas of Communication, Cultures, Comparisons, Connections, and Communities. I realized that even with a clear understanding of what I needed to teach, I still needed to create a clear focus for my own classroom based on these standards, my philosophy of language acquisition and my students’ needs.

When I changed schools four years ago, I created a mission statement that not only allowed me to focus on what was most important in the classroom but also to focus on which technological tools would best suit my purpose. An excellent tutorial for creating a mission statement can be found at Cedar Rapids Community Schools.

My mission, which is a component of my full classroom plan, is to transform students into francophone Francophiles who are self-motivated lifelong learners and world citizens. My main goals are:

• to bring real world language experiences to my students by using authentic resources
• to encourage my students to be autonomous learners
• to create formative assessments of and for learning
• to incorporate developmentally appropriate learning strategies

Additionally, I need to maintain an efficient storage and retrieval system to keep everything together. In this post I will concentrate on the use of authentic sources and how to organize said resources.

Real World Language Resources

As a teacher of French in Texas, it is not always easy for students to realize that French is a global language spoken on five continents. In addition to having my students communicate in French, I must also show them that French does actually exist outside of my classroom and is spoken by real people! Using authentic resources brings the francophone world into my classroom and students understand that French is indeed a global language.

Some of my favorite authentic resources are:

• L’Internaute is an extremely rich French resource with everything from restaurant reviews to the analysis of names. There are also wonderful short videos that give instructions on how to make a Tarte Tatin as well as how to tie Windsor knot (the boys really appreciated this one). L’Internaute distributes several newsletters which highlight various articles. I recently found a wonderful article on the first jobs of the heads of state around the world. My French IV/V class has been studying education in France and we were amazed to find that one world leader once worked as a street vendor selling peanuts. Keeping L’Internaute as my home page gives me constant exposure to every-day French life.

• Lodgis is a real estate site where one can sublet apartments in Paris. You can select the quartier, price range, and amenities you would like in your apartment. There are wonderful pictures of all of the rooms of the apartment as well as a written description of the contents of the apartment and the name of the closest metro stop. There is even a list of the stores and other conveniences near the apartment. Although the apartments are in Paris, the language can be changed into Chinese, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish. After studying the various arrondissements in Paris, my advanced students get to choose an apartment to live in. They love this, and I also have my dream apartment which I have printed out in color and placed in the front cover of one of my planning notebooks. These visuals provide a constant source of descriptions, comparisons, and narration.

• Houra provides the ultimate online shopping experience. Not only are students able to compare French and American products but they also are able to augment their vocabularies with the rich descriptive words that are present in the ads. Although I have mentioned many times that the French use decimal points where we use commas it becomes real to them when they actually see this system in use. I also have the students convert the euros to dollars at XE when you access the Houra site, you must put in a zip code. I use 75007; the arrondissement of La Tour Eiffel. Here is the lesson I created using Houra.

• Wordle has been invaluable recently for providing pre-reading and pre-listening exercises for news stories of the earthquake in Haiti. I teach French levels 1-V and Wordle allowed me to provide comprehensible input for all of students. I paste the text of a French news article from France 24 and allow Wordle to create the word cloud. I then change the color to black and white, select alphabetical order, and set the maximum words to 20-30. I then display the Worlde on my TV screen so that the students can see the words as they come into class. We first find the words they do know and find meanings to the words they don’t know. The students then make predictions of what they think the article will be about. Finally, when I play video of the news story, even the beginning the students are able to understand the gist of the story. For the more advanced students, I print out the article and I may additionally target a certain grammatical structure. Here is an example of a Worlde I have used recently with every level.

• Commercials, movie trailers, and music videos have been another great way of bringing francophone culture into my classroom. Every Monday, as the students are coming into the room, I have videos of commercials playing on my TV. Allociné provides movie trailers so that students can see what is playing in France. I also use it for students to post their film reviews we write in class. The students take their writing much more seriously when they realize that it will be posted for the francophone world to see! Le Top 50 at MCM keeps me aware of what the most popular songs and artists in France. On Fridays, I play film trailers, and music videos. The students love this and often tell me that they have included these francophone artists in their own music collections.

Organizing resources

Keeping all of your ever-growing number of resource together can be a challenge. There are, however, there are many tools that can help you organize your resources. My favorites are:

• Netvibes allows me to keep my websites and other accounts all in one place. With Netvibes you to have a private page and a public page. My private page keeps my email accounts, Flickr, my bookmarking sites, and blogs I read together as well as allowing me to see updates of the blogs in one place. I started Netvibes when I took several online courses and had to organize the many online resources we used for the courses. I had multiple logins, wikis, and blogs to manage at once and Netvibes helped me keep my sanity! I was able to create a tab for each course I was taking as well as the courses teach. These tabs are a lifesaver when I take students to the computer lab (we go about every two weeks) because all of the resources are in one place. Here is a link to my public Netvibes page.

• iTunes allows me create playlists of all of the audio I use for my various levels without having to dig through a mound of CDs. Teaching multiple levels means that I have quite a few CDs for each level. I can easily create a collection of listening exercises organized by theme so that I can find them when I need them. Creating the playlists makes it much easier to monitor the class during assessments because I’m not chained to the CD player trying to find the track I need. iTunes also allows me to add podcasts to the playlists which provide move opportunity for listening experiences.

• One of the challenges of working on multiple computers is organizing your multiple bookmarks. Delicious and Diigo allow me to organize my bookmarks so that I can find and share them easily. I started using Delicious because I liked the aspect of being able to be part of a bookmarking network. Many members of my PLN use Diigo and I created an account there as well. Diigo allows me to be a member of groups so I use it most often. Fortunately, my Delicious bookmarks can be updated simultaneously from Diigo which makes keeping everything updated simple . Here are links to my accounts: Delicious and Diigo.

Using technology can be intimidating unless you have a focus. Many teachers become overwhelmed at the number of resources that are available and do not know where to begin. If you begin by creating a mission, setting goals, and focusing on a limited number of areas, you will be able to tame the information jungle.

Andrea Henderson teaches French at Elkins High School in Missouri City (a suburb of Houston), Texas at Fort Bend Independent School District.
Andrea blogs at http://mmehenderson.typepad.com and http://www.mmehenderson.typepad.com/francophile/
Twitter: @mme_henderson

This post is tagged edtech, edtechtips, French, mfltech, modern languages, resource