Modern Languages Websites
Modern Foreign Languages: Complete, graded lesson packs suitable for both self-access and teacher led lessons in French and German for key stage 3, 4 and beyond; all come with worksheets, vocabulary lists, schemes of work, national curriculum levels and programmes of study where applicable. Use these for cover lessons, independent work, or incorporate them into the scheme of work. Grammar packs are project based or free-standing with clear explanations, worksheets, printable summaries and online self-marking practice games. Students can use further topic based online, interactive, self-marking games and exercises for revision or to practise vocabulary and grammar. The site is constantly updated, and there is a newsletter to inform subscribers about additions to the resources.
About the French Language: Laura K Lawless began studying French in 1987. She is a freelance translator and has taught French and Spanish. She is working hard to make this into the most thorough French language site in the world. The website consists of hundreds of French lessons for all skills, levels, and ages. Lawless adds at least two new lessons or articles every week. It also includes more than 2,000 sound files; 4 forums (including one just for French teachers) where users can practice and get help with their French, as well as exchange ideas with other French-speaking members from around the world; three daily features (a word, quotation, and lesson of the day); articles about the French language and francophone cultures; teaching ideas; and links to online resources such as dictionaries and automatic translators.
Learn French: Speak French at this site and you will get feedback on how you are doing from the webmaster. The topic changes every month. For example, October's topic is the fashion show season. The site is aimed at GCSE French and offers a growing collection of vocabulary practice based on the exam boards' wordlists. At Learn French you will find the best links to help you; these are all free and include whole online courses, collections of exercises as well as useful tools such as talking dictionaries and information on how to print accents and cedillas on the computer. There are also links to fun sites that entertain as well as educate. A recent addition is the collection of online projects presented both in French and English. More offbeat links to authentic French language sites are offered in the free monthly newsletter you can
sign up to.
Aiglon College Language Link is a resource site for German and French. For each language there is a large bank of interactive exercises, grouped by GCSE topic area or Grammar area. In German, there is also a corresponding bank of exercises for A Level. The exercises are of various different types, and each link has a brief description of the nature and level of the exercise. The site also contains material for printing, a revision section, and a set of links to other useful resources. A number of projects by students at the school have also been published on the site, and can be found in the 'Student Work' section.
LinguaCentral is a website dedicated to learners and teachers of French, Spanish and German. Italian, Russian and Japanese are also featured. There are hundreds of links to online language-learning material for specific skills practice or broader language and vocabulary learning. Most content is created by LinguaCentral but other websites are linked from the LinguaCentral web pages. The emphasis is on purposeful and motivating resources giving rise to real progress in the learning of the language. Resources available are varied but all are focused on enjoying the learning process.
Musselburgh Modern Languages: Musselburgh Grammar School has recently launched a website to support pupils and staff in teaching and learning. It pulls together existing resources, together with presentation files, internet challenges and lessons teaching staff can use directly. There are also links to cultural resources, including newspapers, magazines (and translation tools), webcams, photo galleries, cyber school visits. The site also contains ideas and research articles, many of which have been linked to from specialist sites, including the Partners in Excellence programme in the West of Scotland.
ICT4LT - ICT for Language Teachers: The ICT4LT website is the outcome of a Socrates-funded project coordinated by Thames Valley University. It is currently the web's largest single group of freely available training resources in ICT for language teachers. It consists of a total of 15 modules at three different levels in four different languages (English, Italian, Finnish and Swedish), plus an additional category for new modules. The website has proved extremely popular both with practising language teachers and with teachers undergoing initial teacher training in university departments of education. The site receives an average of 500-plus hits per day and has been used widely as a support for the delivery of face-to-face and online training courses in ICT for language teachers. The site has been accessed not only from EU countries but also from over 70 other countries throughout the world. The ICT4LT website is updated by Graham Davies (Visiting Professor, Thames Valley University) on a weekly basis and continues to expand.
IST French: The International School Of Toulouse French Website contains links to tutorials in different languages to use Hot Potatoes software’s last version and many good links to on-line dictionaries, interactive stories and games, tongue twisters, slang French and to on-line exercises to practise verbs / tenses, grammar, spelling, vocabulary and assess your knowledge of French. You can find information about French culture - television, radio, cinema, press - and about living in Toulouse. To learn vocabulary through French pop music, listen to the audio files and fill in the blanks of a few songs. There are also vocabulary exercises about some good French movies and Christmas French activities. A whole section is dedicated to examinations: there are the syllabi of the IGCSE French as a First Language and of the IGCSE French as a Foreign Language, with some lists of vocabulary required by the Cambridge International Examinations Board and some past papers for the Speaking Test. And there are also the syllabi of the International Baccalaureate French Language A1, A2 or B (and links to useful websites for IB French B).
Bonjour: This award-winning website offers a variety of French resources and online activities. Originally set up as a school website, Bonjour is now used in hundreds of schools worldwide. Students can access the site during lesson time as well as at home. Endorsed by the National Curriculum, the NGfL, The Guardian, The BBC, Channel 4 and even the Cabinet Office, Bonjour constitutes a quality resource for all learners and teachers of French. Its downloadable resources include a host of worksheets that complement the online activities.
YourDictionary provides the most comprehensive and authoritative portal for language and language-related products and services on the web with more than 1800 dictionaries covering 250 languages. More than 1,500,000 people a month visit YDC. YourDictionary's immediate predecessor, A Web of Online Dictionaries, was launched in 1995 by Dr. Robert Beard at Bucknell University, as a research tool for the world's linguistic community.
ActiLingua Academy: This website offers visitors not only extensive information on learning German in Vienna, including all there is to know about our wide range of courses, accommodation facilities, and cultural programme, but also sample exercises, a guide to Vienna, travel information and many other interesting topics.
German Football: Now that the new football season has started, German teachers may be interested in this online project about German football and the Fußballbundesliga, with activities which are accessible for both beginners and advanced learners. The structure of the project lends itself to self-access work or cover work over several lessons. The home page explains the project clearly and provides links to 5 different mini-projects (exercises) as well as a very useful student checklist and assessment page which provides a structured format for marking the project. Exercise one features the Bundesliga, its structure and teams. In exercise two students find out about their chosen club. In exercise three, students choose a specific player to research with the help of structured questions. In exercise four students are given a budget to go shopping for merchandise. In exercise five students find out how to read out the most recent football results for their team and record them on tape. Each mini-project has a worksheet which can either be printed off or copied into a word processing document, and students work towards presenting their research results from each exercise in a different way, building their work up into a portfolio. Further whole class activities are suggested, including quizzes and listening exercises and there is plenty of opportunity for research in pairs or groups.
Modern Languages: Schemes of Work: The Standards Site is managed by the Department for Education and Employment's Standards and Effectiveness Unit (SEU). The main objective of the site is to supply teachers with "guidance and tools to help schools improve effectiveness, raise standards and reduce workload". Secondary Modern Foreign Language schemes of work are available for French, German and Spanish.
Wild French: This website, produced by Julian Atkinson, is intended to assist both teachers and learners of French by making available a range of online resources that complement many of the popular published courses and GCSE examinations. Its online exercises are linked to several different textbooks produced by Heinemann, Hodder & Stoughton and Oxford University Press. For GCSE there are online reading papers for Edexcel and links to sites offering reading/listening papers for other boards.
Open Directory in French: The Open Directory follows in the footsteps of some of the most important contributor projects of the 20th century. Just as the Oxford English Dictionary became the definitive word on words through the efforts of a volunteers, the Open Directory follows in its footsteps to become the definitive catalog of the Web. This new part of its website gives you access to the Open Directory's French-related listings through a French-language interface.
French Revision: This website was created by Bernard Dyer, a Modern Foreign Languages teacher at Holywells High School, Ipswich. The students can test their knowledge in all skills using these interactive activities with audio files. The material is organized under the following headings: Key Stage 3, Formule X, GCSE, 'A' Level, French Grammar, Exam Revision and Java Games. A recent edition to the site is the Edexcel Exam Papers from 1998 to 2001.
Modern Languages resources organised by category, including French, German, Russian, Spanish, Catalan and Linguistics. Registered users may suggest new categories and links to be added to the database and receive
updates when new content is added. Site also contains languages forums, online languages bookshop and GCSE revision notes.
Virtual French Literature: An excellent resource for all teachers and students of French literature. Virtual French Literature is a large database of out of copyright classics in French. Writers featured include Appollinaire, Balzac, Colette, Maupassant, Racine, Rambaud, Fanon, Flaubert, Gide, Zola, Hugo, Rousseau, Stendhal, Verne and Voltaire. The website also contains a comprehensive collection of biographies of French writers.
French Cyberbook: This website provides free online French courses that are designed to help French instructors to integrate technology into their teaching. The courses on the French Cyberbook website have been designed by Fabienne Gérard and Claudia Griesing, two high school teachers at Cary Academy, North Carolina.
ARTFL Project: The American and French Research on the Treasury of the French Language (ARTFL) is based at the University of Chicago. The website contains over 20,000 French texts including the Diderot Encyclopaedia, Roget's Thesaurus and the French Bible. ARTFL is also working on several collaborative projects with French educational institutions. These are all listed and linked from the main website.
French-English Dictionary: The American and French Research on the Treasury of the French Language (ARTFL) is based at the University of Chicago. Mark Olsen of the University of Chicago's ARTFL Project is constructing a French-English Dictionary. So far it contains only 75,000 words but it is still growing and it is hoped that eventually it will be as comprehensive as ARTFL's English dictionary. At the moment you can only search for individual words and not phrases or expressions. However, it does tell you the gender and whether it is a noun or verb.
WebMuseum: Paris: WebMuseum's is a good place to visit before taking a school trip to Paris. Sponsored by BMW, the website provides a virtual tour of Paris. You have the choice of "walking around on your own" or taking a "historical guided tour". Some of the tours offered include 'Paris and its River', 'La Tour Eiffel' and 'The Crypt of Notre Dame'. The most impressive feature is a virtual tour of the Louvre. The site is in English and is therefore more useful for students of French history and culture than the French language.
Learn French: Speak French at this site and you will get feedback on how you are doing from the webmaster. The topic changes every month. For example, October's topic is the fashion show season. The site is aimed at GCSE French and offers a growing collection of vocabulary practice based on the exam boards' wordlists. At Learn French you will find the best links to help you; these are all free and include whole online courses, collections of exercises as well as useful tools such as talking dictionaries and information on how to print accents and cedillas on the computer. There are also links to fun sites that entertain as well as educate. A recent addition is the collection of online projects presented both in French and English. More offbeat links to authentic French language sites are offered in the free monthly newsletter you can
sign up to.
ZUT: Catherine Murphy taught French in Cardiff, UK, for 10 years and gave up last year in order to be able to spend more time working on my own website. Zut provides a comprehensive set of interactive activities for French teachers and learners, featuring more than 500 exercises, over 100 of which have audio samples of native French speakers. It is an easily navigated resource, organised for each year of study and also includes exercises for the interactive whiteboard.
BBC Learning: French: The BBC is now providing a series of short online learning courses on French. This includes French Fix (motivational language learning which takes whatever knowledge of French you have and challenges you to improve it on the spot); French Steps (earn how to converse, order in a restaurant and ask for directions in French with this online beginners course that's easy-to-use); Language Gauge (this tool will let you find out how much you know and what's best for you to take your it further; Talk French (a language course for absolute beginners, with video and audio clips and activities to help you learn); The French Experience (a series of multimedia activities for beginners, building on the absolute basics of Talk French, but can be used on its own to learn and practise the language).
Your Dictionary is the most comprehensive and authoritative portal for language and language-related products and services on the web with more than 1800 dictionaries and grammars representing some 300 different languages. 1,500,000 people a month visit Your Dictionary. The website offers access to free, on-line language resources and tapes, CDs, videos and books for off-line use. It also offers a "Linguistic Fun" page where you may write your name in a host of languages or Postmodernist scholarly articles with the click of a mouse. The game room contains 60 different kinds of word games, including special games that help the 60,000 subscribers to its amusing and insightful "Word of the Day" feature maintain that vocabulary. The library shows that the website rests on solid knowledge of languages with its entertaining articles written by the 24 member Advisory Council of Experts, professors at the leading universities around the world. There is also a section on the preservation of endangered languages and special features, such as the set of glossaries on current events featured this month.
Español LearnPlus: The Español LearnPlus is an online Spanish language course for those with little or no background in the language. The 15 lesson course teaches conversational skills, pronunciation, grammatical concepts, through drills, practice, exercises and role-plays. Español Learnplus claims that after the completion of the course the student should be able to "manipulate basic conversational skills: for example, you will be able to ask for directions, place an order in a restaurant, buy a ticket at a train station and communicate with a Spanish speaker on an elementary level".
Learn Spanish Online Tutorial: Learn Spanish is an outstanding website that provides a wealth of information for all students and teachers of the language. The online tutorial includes written and oral exercises and currently covers over 50 separate topics. The Vocabulary section includes hundreds of the most common and useful words needed to speak Spanish. To make it more enjoyable for the student, each category includes a series of interactive games. There is also a Cultural Notes section that attempts to provide the student with "insights into the people, places and customs" of Spanish-speaking countries.
Webspañol: Webspañol is a collection of Internet resources that promotes the study and appreciation of the Spanish language. This includes a large number of online tests such as translating the song lyrics of the Beatles, a systemised study of English-Spanish cognates, solving Spanish riddles and mastering irregular verbs. There is also an audio pronunciation guide, English-Spanish Penpal Exchange, a Spanish Chat Room and links to newsgroups in 20 Spanish-speaking countries.
Spanish Romance: This website provides free resources to those wanting to learn Spanish. Spanish Romance provides students and teachers with Spanish Words, Spanish Proverbs, Spanish Poems, Spanish Recipes, Spanish Lyrics, Spanish Vocabulary, Spanish Phrases, Spanish Sayings, Spanish Riddles, Spanish Stories, Spanish Jokes, Spanish Schools, Spanish Penpals, and much more.
All About Spain: All About Spain is a comprehensive website for anyone planning to visit Spain. Sections include: Regions of Spain (provinces, locations of interest, major attractions, etc.); City Guide (information on Spain's most important cities); Spain A-Z (alphabetical listing of all the locations mentioned on the website); Yellow Pages (database of hotels, camping sites, youth hostels, restaurants, etc.); Photo Tour (a collection of photographs of Spain) and Country and Culture (information about Spain's climate, history, architecture, popular customs, etc.).
Spanish Vocabulary Builder: Spanish is spoken by over 300 million people and is the most spoken language after Chinese (890 million) and English (320 million). This website is an attempt to help people increase their Spanish Vocabulary. Words are listed in several different categories: foods, transportation, sports, animals, verbs, weather, occupations, holidays and time. By clicking on the picture the visitor can hear the word being spoken in Spanish.
Spanish for the Virtual Student: The Spanish for the Virtual Student has been created by William Dechent of the University of Missouri. The course contains over 50 modules and covers pronunciation, nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs and pronouns.
Español con Carlitos: A website where you can learn Spanish for free. Carlitos is your guide through the Spanish language and culture. You find interactive exercises and telecollaborative activities in Spanish. Three times a year you can participate in an event: build your website to a certain theme and win a prize! The site also offers grammar support (Ayuda grammatical, access from the Sitemap) and guidelines (Objetivos) with detailed information to each of the activities.
Travlang's German-English Online Dictionary: Travlang was founded by Dr. Michael Martin in 1995 and is committed to providing a variety of useful tools for those interested in learning a foreign language. Travlang's German-English Online Dictionary contains more than 130,000 entries and enables the visitor to translate phrases from German to English and vice versa. Includes facility for users to add words and phrases to the dictionary.
German Electronic Textbook: The German Electronic Textbook provides a grammar and pronunciation guide. Topics covered include: Nouns and Noun Modifiers, Pronouns, Word Order, Prepositions, Adjectives & Adverbs, Conjunctions, Verbs: Present Tense, Verbs: Subjective Mood and Verbs: Passive Voice.
German for Beginners: A website that contains some useful material for students just starting a study of the German language. Sections include Beginners Grammar, Exercises and Links. The website also enables you to listen to useful German phrases and provides a comprehensive series of links to English-German dictionaries.
Harry Potter in German: A German website dedicated to J. K. Rowling's hero, Harry Potter. It provides information on characters (Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger, Hagrid, Albus Dumbledore and Daco Malfoy) and locations (Hogwarts, Privet Drive, Diagon Alley, Gringotts and Hogsmeade) used in the books. The website also has summaries of each book and provides links to press articles on the work of J. K. Rowling.
Languages Online: German: This website includes a collection of online lessons under the headings: Grammar, Vocabulary, Read, Write, Listen, Speak, Pronunciation and Quizzes. There is also a section on culture, examining several German-speaking nations, such as Austria, Germany and Switzerland.
Erlebniswelt: Students can use this website to test out their knowledge of the German language. The website includes sections on general knowledge, geography, history, science and nature. It also provides reports on the week's news stories in German.
Teaching Modern Languages: The European Forum of Technical and Vocational Education and Training and a team of European colleges are seeking to develop new approaches to teaching languages. The objective is to improve teaching by selecting and visualizing language teaching methods with an emphasis on communication activities. This approach is based on a number of EU reports showing a need for better language teaching methods. But it is also believed that a visual demonstration of suitable methods will be an advantage to vocational language teaching in general. The aim is to develop ready-to-use materials, a video library (on DVD) for language teachers to see the methods used in real classes with instructions and hints for better use of other existing materials. In addition, there will be a guide manual with descriptions and ready to copy materials.
European Treasury Browser: The ETB Project has just released a multilingual thesaurus for education in Europe, available in eight languages: Danish, English, French, German, Greek, Italian, Spanish, Swedish. The thesaurus is aimed at indexing educational resources, and help to build an interoperable infrastructure to exchange and network metadata on educational resources for schools in Europe. The ETB will link together existing national repositories, encourage new publication, and provide a reliable level of quality and structure. The project aims to add value to national resource collections by adding an interoperable layer to help teachers and students locate resources Europe-wide.
French Revision: This site, produced by Mr. Dyer, a Modern Foreign Languages teacher at Holywells High School, Ipswich, contains many hundreds of interactive French exercises. These are aimed at Key Stage 3, Key Stage 4 and 'A' Level students. The site contains numerous past papers, covering three different exam boards, to enable students to practise online.
Canal Rêve offers free on-line activities for learners of French. The website is designed as a TV programme in which you will find three different levels: (1) Interactive broadcasts such as music, cooking, weather forecasts, games etc, using multimedia and offering help when needed. They can be used either by isolated learners or by school groups. (2) Quarterly competitions, inviting participants to produce html documents in French on given subjects. Winners receive prizes (provided by a French publisher Didier). Every item of work is published on the Canal Rêve website. (3) A production department built up from pedagogical materials specifically intended to help learners and teachers working with Canal Rêve.
Multimedia Physik: A portal to school physics, mathematics, astronomy and science for teachers and students
studying in German. Produced by Peter Krahmer at the University of Wuerzburg, the website had many links to English written pages.
Vacation to France: This WebQuest for students of French was created by Lee Kirby of the University of Richmond. The student is told that the family has decided to take a trip to France. The problem is that each one of you has different interests and likes so you must make an itinerary that fits all of your interests and needs. Once you are in France you have to visit all of these fun and exciting places and bring back information and pictures for a scrapbook.
Graham Davies's Favourite Websites: An annotated list of hundreds of websites for Modern Foreign Languages, compiled by Graham Davies, including links to authentic materials, school and university site, sites offering interactive exercises, and sites from which classroom materials can be downloaded - plus a few entertaining links with a linguistic focus. This page also includes links to a number of articles on MFL/ICT written by Graham Davies.
Summerhill School Language Site: Language teacher Kim Neale of the Summerhill School in Kingswinford is the person behind this impressive website. The site offers class pages for language students from Year 7 to Year 11. There are numerous interactive activities: quizzes, games such as hangman, concentration, drag and drop and many more. These activities are designed by Kim with the aid of Quia and Hot Potatoes Web Authoring Packages. The site is constantly updated and is suitable for use in ICT suites or for whole class teaching with a whiteboard. It provides instant lessons and also homework activities and is suitable for the introduction of new vocabulary and grammar and also for revision. The sites also features links to other useful websites.
Centre for Information on Language Teaching (CILT) is the national centre of expertise on language teaching. CILT was established in 1966 as an independent charitable trust supported by central government grants, with the aim of collecting and disseminating information on all aspects of modern languages and the teaching of modern languages. CILT is not a membership organization; anyone concerned with language teaching and learning is welcome to visit the Centre or write for information. CILT's prime objectives are to promote a greater national capability in languages and to support the work of all those concerned with language teaching and learning.
ITÉ Christmas: This website provides lots of language teaching and learning activities on a festive theme for French, German, Irish, Italian, Spanish and Japanese. There are two competitions this year with Christmas Hamper and individual prizes to be won!
Jennifer Language Page: At this site you can learn how to say several words and phrases in hundreds of different languages. This includes "hello" (800 languages), "thank you" (500 languages), "goodbye" (450 languages), "how are you?" (425 languages), "welcome" (325 languages), "please" (270 languages), "I don't understand" (255 languages), "good morning" (250 languages) and "good evening" (225 languages).
Susanne Pratscher's Website: On this website, Susanne Pratscher, a teacher from Austria, provides information about school activities concerning languages (German, English, French and Italian). Furthermore there are a number of English language exercises (grammar and vocabulary) for students. They are linked to an Austrian university website which offers a so-called "Ergebnisverwaltung" (i.e. management of results). That is especially useful for teachers who have a whole class solve exercises and can then check the outcomes of all students. Students just have to enter a name and a class before they start the exercise.
Quiz Machine: Who Wants To Learn French Vocabulary? is a free piece of software that you can download and play at home as often as you like. It's essentially a Quiz Machine program based upon the familiar "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?" format but instead of general knowledge questions, all of the questions are designed to help you learn French via words and pictures. It comes with a complete quiz for you to start with and you can download additional quizzes from the website when they appear.
MFL Games is a website dedicated to learners of French, Spanish and German. The emphasis is on making the learning process fun whilst remaining faithful to the central objective of successful learning and retention of vocabulary and phrases. There are several hundred games available to play, free of charge, ranging from the exciting Millionaire, Wheel of Fortune, Mismatch, Scratchcard and Mastermind to the challenging Odd One Out and Complete the Series. All games are stimulating, challenging and exciting. The is also a section for the interactive whiteboard.
Modern Languages Web Guide: Created by Education Unlimited, this web guide contains recommended links to hundreds of websites for teachers, parents and students. The websites are organized under the following categories: Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Russian and Spanish.
Learn Spanish: With Cactus Language you can learn Spanish in amazing locations like Santiago de Cuba, Playa Tamarindo (Puerto Rico) and of course a variety of other places across Spain and South America. It also offer Self Study and Face to Face courses in many different languages. The combination of the structured self-study courses with the dynamism of face-to-face sessions with Cactus trainers at critical points throughout provides a cost-effective solution for those students who want to study at their own pace but do not want to feel isolated and value the motivation of teacher support.
Don Quijote: Free Spanish language resources including the Spanish word of the day, level test, online dictionary, online Spanish course, information on the Spanish culture, city guides and much more. A perfect site for you who is looking to start learning Spanish or for you in need to brush up their Spanish.
Philippe Tassel: "A snake from under the skin" is the English version of a scary story in French (for children of 8 and over) called "Un serpent dans la peau", written by Philippe Tassel, a Parisian Primary teacher. "Life is so unfair! Peter takes action to live in his own world thanks to a mysterious book. But nothing goes according to plan..." This story is made up of five short chapters.
Crickhowell High MFL: This website, created and maintained by Marie-France Stevens, provides Hot Potatoes interactive exercises for all Secondary Key Stages, links, information about the Crickhowell High Modern Foreign Language Department and a news page. Marie-France Stevens plans to add forms, functions and database access to the site in order to make it more user friendly.
AFL: Arabic as a Foreign Language (AFL) is web-based online service that allows anyone to independently practice speaking, listening to, and understanding Arabic by virtual interactions with native Arabs. This system uses an advanced learning method to help you pronounce and understand a full range of phrases required to conduct real conversations. It’s one of the fastest and most enjoyable ways for students to refresh their memory and increase their speaking and listening skills in Arabic.
Foreign Languages: The BBC webguide provides reviews of sites for the students of French and German. It also includes details of websites for students of Bengali, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Italian, Japanese, Modern Greek, Modern Hebrew, Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Russian and Swedish.
Haifa Virtual Museum: This project was developed in Israel to help students learn French via the study of music. The student investigates the subject – the history of the melody; analyzes of music according to their characteristics and those of the period to which they belong, influence of the music on the culture; he/she assembles the information and evaluates it; organize the information following the structure of the museum and develop way for presenting it: explanation, activation and so on.
Hebrew: The teachers of a junior high school established this portal and now serves thousands of students from all over the country. The site includes an educational index with 6,000 items in Hebrew that serves their learning processes and increases their accessibility for a wide range of information sources. Such index is particularly useful in an marginal areas where the students do not have easy access to large and rich libraries so that the index contributes for bridging the gap of the Digital Divide. The portal includes a magazine where there are sections and features on issues close to the interests of the youngsters but still having an educational value: science news, this week in the History, information sciences, how to build sites, nutrition, heritage, nature and more… some of them are edited by the youngsters themselves.
iLoveLanguages is a comprehensive catalog of language-related Internet resources. The more than 2000 links on the website have been hand-reviewed to bring you the best language links the Web has to offer. Whether you're looking for online language lessons, translating dictionaries, native literature, translation services, software, language schools, or just a little information on a language you've heard about, iLoveLanguages probably has something to suit your needs.
Language Exchange: This website allows you to pick a language partner according to the language you want to speak, their age and the country where they live. The website even provides free "lesson plans" so that you can learn each other's languages together online. Language Exchange hosts your online practice with lesson plans and text chat rooms.
Online Language Laboratory: If you interested in European languages, lifestyle and culture you should pay a visit to the Eurocosm website. Eurocosm can help language students of all levels - from those who simply want to start learning a foreign language, to those who wish to become multilingual in the 5 most widely-spoken European languages. The Online Language Laboratory has over 500 learning units. The learning modules and units are grouped according to subjects from simply going shopping, meeting friends, answering the phone, expressing your opinion, to finding a job, or even going fishing!
Transparent Language: This website provides this opportunity for you to test your proficiency level in various foreign languages. Transparent Language have based this test on the standard grammar and vocabulary that you would find in any language-learning materials. Unlike achievement tests or other kinds of tests, proficiency tests are not dependent on particular class content, course materials, or language software programs. Instead, a proficiency test is intended to measure your command of a language regardless of your background in that language.
Gut! Produced by Joanna Applewhite from Lincoln Christ's Hospital School, this website provides a comprehensive set of interactive activities for German teachers and learners, featuring more than 200 exercises, over 50 of which have audio samples of native German speakers. It is an easily navigated resource, organised for each year of study and also includes exercises for the interactive whiteboard. Although best done online, a lot of the exercises can be printed out and used in the classroom.
Language Investigator: This website is the result of a one-year project called “Thinking through Languages” which was developed within a group of Coventry Primary Schools. Funded by the Nuffield Foundation, the material is aimed at Primary School teachers who are interested introducing a multilingual dimension into their lessons. It aims to provide pupils with a foundation for future language learning through encounters with languages from the local and international communities. The site provides a number of opportunities for investigating languages together with links to multilingual materials which will support the teacher in developing them.
Lemo: This websites contains a wealth of texts, images, audio files and videos charting the evolution of German politics, social attitudes and culture from 1900 to 2000. There are sections on 1900-1914, First World War, the Weimar Republic, Nazi Germany, Second World War and the Cold War. It also has an excellent Guided Tours provides an overview of the topic.
Mexico: This excellent website provides detailed information on Mexico. There are sections on news, history, government, explore, biodiversity, games, music, holidays, myths & stories. As well as being in the language of Mexico it is also available in English, Italian and French.
E-Train: A strong database forms the backbone of dynamically generated English Online Exercises by which young learners of English can improve their basic grammar, listening and writing skills. Their input is instantly checked, corrected – if necessary – and a feedback is given after ten examples, encouraging the learner to go on. Repetitions of the same exercise are done with different model sentences, taken from the database by random choice. Pupils stay in their traditional classroom reality, where they meet daily and enjoy their communicative English, but they use the computer mainly at home to train their grammar and vocabulary skills.
Autonomy and English Teaching: This is an advanced course in English as a foreign language produced in Iceland. The main emphasis is on English drama and dramatists, as well as vocabulary and overall competence in English. Students are aged 17-20. An experiment has been made this year in having fewer classes a week, two hours instead of four. Emphasis is put on student autonomy - the student is responsible for his studies. This was made possible by using a web-based environment - ANGEL (a global environment for learning). Assignments, tests, essays, discussion, announcements and email go through this web-based tool. By having the course web-based students can access course material wherever they are, whenever they want - if they have a computer with Internet access.
Projecte Spring Day 2004: Núria de Salvador has produced a summary of pedagogical proposals on what to do for Spring Day 2004 aimed at Spanish teachers in general, and Spanish teachers of English in particular. Useful proposals on getting to know the EU and the New Member States, working on values, sharing information, etc.
Google Language Tools: This Google page will be most helpful to persons looking to translate short passages of text or entire web pages. First, the page provides an engine that allows users to search for pages composed in over thirty languages. The most helpful feature, though, is a translator that lets users translate text passages and web pages from English into five different languages, and several different European languages back into English.
Values through Proverbs: Noemi Lusi teaches English and Civilization to 14-19 year old boys and girls at Carlo Urbani High School in Rome. She is currently collecting European proverbs for her website. These proverbs will be organized under the headings Democracy, Tolerance, Solidarity, Peace, Freedom, Equality and will be presented in English and the contributors own language. There is also an opportunity for teachers and students to send images to go with their proverbs.
Spring Day in Poland: This event enables European pupils to learn about their neighbours in an enlarged Europe and make their voices heard in the debate on key European issues. The event is organised by European Schoolnet in collaboration with the European Commission. This year Spring Day in Europe will have a special focus on enlargement, as ten new countries will become full EU members on 1st May 2004. Poland is expected to be one of the most active countries involved in Spring Europe. So far over 550 schools in Poland have registered with the project.
Japan: Following the Japan 2001 Festival in Britain, there has been an increase in interest in studying Japanese culture and language in the UK. The British Council, with funding from the Department for Education and Skills, has recently extended its activities for Japan and continues to work closely with Monbusho (the Japanese Ministry of Education) on a number of projects. It is anticipated that schools and colleges will establish sustainable links that will impact on the development of those institutions, contribute to the professional development of their staff, enrich the curriculum and support language awareness and learning. Information on how to apply for any of these grants can be found on this British Council website.
Learning, Language & Technology: Language Learning & Technology is a refereed journal which began publication in July 1997. The journal seeks to disseminate research to foreign and second language educators in the US and around the world on issues related to technology and language education. It is published exclusively on the World Wide Web. In this way, the journal seeks to (a) reach a broad audience in a timely manner, (b) provide a multimedia format which can more fully illustrate the technologies under discussion, and (c) provide hypermedia links to related background information. Language Learning & Technology is currently published three times per year (January, May, September).
Association for Language Learning is the UK's major subject association for teachers of foreign languages. The association is committed to the professional development of teachers of languages and the promotion of language learning and teaching. The Association for Language Learning covers the teaching of Arabic, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Russian, Spanish and Portuguese.
Speech Accent Archive: Everyone who speaks a language, speaks it with an accent. A particular accent essentially reflects a person's linguistic background. This website has been established to uniformly exhibit a large set of speech accents from a variety of language backgrounds. The archive is constructed as a teaching tool and as a research tool. It is meant to be used by linguists as well as other people who simply wish to listen to and compare the accents of different English speakers. It allows users to compare the demographic and linguistic backgrounds of the speakers in order to determine which variables are key predictors of each accent.
French Teacher: The site is aimed at secondary teachers of French. It is maintained by Steven Smith, Head of Modern Foreign Languages at Ripon Grammar School. It is primitive in appearance, but downloads very quickly and is uncluttered by irrelevant graphics. The worksheets tend to link with Encore Tricolore course, but are of general use. It is a "no nonsense" site of great use to teachers looking for clear, accurate and sensible grammar and vocab worksheets. The website is regularly updated.
Welsh Second Language: This Bitesize website helps you to revise GCSE Welsh as a Second Language syllabus including essential areas of reading and writing at foundation and higher level. Sections include: Exam Skills, Reading Activities (Foundation/Higher) and Writing Activities (Foundation/Higher).
Zompist Phrasebook: Mark Rosenfelder has created a funny website that includes translations of sentences that you are unlikely to find in a typical phrasebook. This includes phrases in French, Spanish, German, Russian, Italian, Danish, Dutch and Chinese. The website shows you how to say: "How much is that in real money?", "I'm a personal friend of the Ambassador", "Where can I find the dissidents?", "Can I have fries with that?", "Officer, this is an outrage" and "Have you ever considered that we might be insulted because you haven't learned English?"
French Revision: This site is primarily aimed at students (aged 11 to 18), but there is a lot of material available for teachers too. It contains a large number of interactive French exercises. There are listening, reading and writing exercises. The exercises mark themselves and a score is given! You will need the RealAudio player for the listening exercises. Parts of this site make use of Flash and Java. You will need a Java-enabled browser to access these areas. The flash plug-in should automatically install itself, if not you can download it from the downloads section of the site.
Windows on the World: The site is managed by The British Council Education and Training Group. It is a free, easy to use database for schools and colleges that wish to develop links with other institutions worldwide. School and college teachers register their institutions on the site, informing others that they wish to develop a link. Using the search tool teachers can also browse the thousands of schools and colleges already registered on the site. Once a possible partner school has been found teachers can make contact with each other directly to negotiate a link.
French Exchange: The Lefèvre Trust offers exchange visit bursaries for young people aged 13-18 wishing to undertake an exchange with a French partner. The Trust was established by the will of Madame Nina Lefèvre, a British citizen domiciled in France, who died in 1975. The Lefèvre Trust welcome applications from groups; e.g. youth groups, sports clubs, artistic/cultural organisations as well as school groups, as well as from individuals. Please note however, that the rules of the Trust insist all potential participants must attend state secondary schools and colleges in London. The fund is intended to support school-age children from the two countries equally in exchange visits; grants of up to £8000 can be awarded, to be split equally between the London and French partner.
BBC Italian: The Italian zone of this language site contains a good selection of resources for anyone wanting to study this subject. Courses available include Italian Steps (a self-contained online course for beginners), Talk Italian (short introductory course with TV series and book), Italianissimo (video clips, language notes and activities accompany this well-established course). Other features include: Voices of the World (See the people. Hear the language. Test your understanding with a quiz.), Euro Guide (How to ask for euros in Italian) and Languages across Europe (Who speaks it, where it can be found).
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