|
|
 Ratings
|
|
|
| Reviewed: |
Apr 24, 2008 by World Languages Editorial Board |
| Overview: |
Even though this site is a travel guide of France with some geographical, historical and tourist information about 21 French regions, it can be easily integrated into the French curriculum as a one of the useful sources of realia because it has virtual tours of each region, all the information necessary such as a list of regions, cities and villages; a list of hotels, restaurants, camping spots for planning a trip to France: making hotel and restaurant reservations, ordering a rental, as well as sightseeing. It offers a list of vacation tips as well as various travel insurances. It also allows checking ones knowledge of French history and culture, and even creating an electronic card that he can e-mail to his francophone friends. |
| Learning Goals: |
Students of French will enlarge vocabulary on various topics such as tourism, history and culture of France; they will reinforce their knowledge of grammar as well as improve their French language competence, fluency, and communicative skills during pair/group learning activities. |
| Target Student Population: |
Students of beginning, med/high intermediate or advanced levels |
| Prerequisite Knowledge or Skills: |
Some basic French |
| Type of Material: |
Resource |
| Recommended Uses: |
Group or whole class assignments |
| Technical Requirements: |
N/A |
|
|
|
| Strengths: |
This site has a clear purpose: to help tourists to plan their vacation in France as well as familiarize themselves with French culture, history and geography of France. This site has an adequate amount of material that will allow L2/FL students to enlarge their vocabulary, reinforce their knowledge of grammar, and broaden their horizon, in general. It is authentic material, the realia that is so needed in L2 or FL language classrooms. It adheres to a clear organizing principle because its well organized and very informative. The fact that all the material is in French makes it purposeful and useful in L2/FL classrooms. |
| Concerns: |
None |
|
|
Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching Tool |
Rating:    |
|
| Strengths: |
This site is a very useful teaching source because it is full of realia and thereby provides the opportunity for students to explore the accessible information provided, at their own pace, according to their own level of French, their personal interests and preferences. It is engaging because it is very vivid, thanks to various beautiful views of France, informative and easy to follow. It can be readily integrated into a lesson of every level of French, for group or pair work as well as for individual study (homework assignment). It will be easy for an instructor to write a lesson plan based on the materials on this site leaving a lot of room for students creativity.
In the case of low beginners, this site can play the role of interrogation space for retrieving new information on a given topic. At the advanced intermediate level, this site provides visual worlds for the reinforcement of various vocabulary and more complex grammar: le future simple and le conditionnel, or le passé composé vs. limparfait can take place, for example, within a topic My dream vacation in France or How have you spent your last vacation in France? In case of advanced learners, this website also stimulates and supports learners more demanding language learning and creativity to conduct a search in order, for example, to create a presentation. It can also be used in L2/FL classroom on French history and culture whereby taking a quiz or by utilizing abundant beautiful pictures of historical places, monuments, traditional architecture of different cities and villages, instructors will promote L2/FL learning. |
| Concerns: |
None |
|
|
Ease of Use for Both Students and Faculty |
| Rating: |
|
| Strengths: |
The quality of the audio and video is clear, neat, and well presented. An L2/FL learner with adequate new literacies skills and/or prompted by his instructor on goals of the site use will be able to understand and navigate it easily. In other words, it doesnt require a lot of documentation, technical support, and/or very detailed instruction for most students to use successfully according to their level. The fact that this site demonstrates good use of color and easily readable screens make it a great asset for L2/FL French learning and teaching.
When it comes to the labels, buttons, menus, text, other user interface elements and general layout is consistent and visually distinct. Overall, due to plentiful information about 21 regions of France, their landscapes, history, architecture of villages and cities with restaurants and hotels, a list of travel tips and insurances as well as its very familiar layout, form of the information presentation, this site can be very interesting and attractive to L2/FL students. |
| Concerns: |
None |
|
|
| Other Issues and Comments: |
None |
|
