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France Bienvenue

This is just to point out the excellent France Bienvenue website run by a small team led by Anne from the IUT in Marseilles. It was begun in 2008 and each year different students take part and produce recordings with transcripts for learners of French throughout the world. Recordings are accompanied by a slideshow and full transcript, together with notes on interesting aspects of language and culture. The recordings are natural, clear and usually interesting. I have used a few to make worksheets for frenchteacher.net. In addition, videos can be accessed on Youtube. The level is generally low advanced (AS level in England and Wales), though some could be used with good intermediate (GCSE) classes.

You could use these videos in class or get students to use them for independent listening, following the transcripts and notes as they do.

Here is one I used for a worksheet:



Anne writes:

Comprendre une langue telle qu’on la parle au quotidien, ce n’est pas toujours facile, surtout si on ne vit pas dans le pays où on parle cette langue! 

Alors, nous avons envie de partager avec vous ces petites conversations authentiques que nous enregistrons avec nos amis, nos proches ou d’autres pour que vous puissiez entendre le français tel qu’on le parle ici en France, à Marseille et ailleurs...

Je m’appelle Anne et j’ai démarré ce travail en octobre 2008 avec un premier groupe d’étudiants à l’IUT de Marseille. Chaque année, il se développe avec une nouvelle équipe. 

It's brilliant that teachers like Anne share such useful and engaging material with us all.

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