Useful Things

These are sites I’ve found that are extremely useful either for me or for my students! I’ve also included Apps or other programs that I use.

French Language Resources

  • Wordreference.com – Hands down my favorite and most used resource I have. Extensive online French-English dictionary including regional definitions. Has a very active online discussion community where you can post questions. I have, as well as my students, posted and gotten responses back within the day – it’s usually within an hour of posting!
  • Forvo.com – I love this site as well. I use it and direct students to it all the time. Forvo is trying to pronounce all the words in every language with all regional accents. I’ve been active there recording in English (you can only record in your native languages) but you can play any language and post things to be recorded!
  • fr.wikipedia.org – If you’re still afraid of Wikipedia because it’s online and everyone can edit it, you need to leave that at the door. Yes there are mistakes. Yes people can edit. But there is also a dedicated community willing to edit and fix up articles. And your students can edit and add information or even create pages about local places, events, festivals, or add to articles talking about things in America. This opens up their ability to communicate to a wider audience!
  • larousse.fr – I use the online version of Larousse more for the French dictionary and encyclopedia. It includes extensive definitions and examples for expressions as well as access to their great encyclopedia. I direct my upper level students to use it, too!
  • BBC French
  • TV5Monde

Microlearning Resources

  • Duolingo – Microlearning and gamification at its finest. Works you through a tree of different lessons/units. You also have to review information to keep it “fresh.” Fun lessons (love is the students’ favorite) is unlocked only after you’ve done enough. I use this as a supplementary resource for students only. I does do a good job of introducing new ideas and working on grammar…if they stick with it!
    • There’s also a teacher portal. You can give students the link and you can see their progress. You can also “assign” certain units of study.
  • Quizlet
  • Memrise

K-12 Classroom Resources

  • Common Curriculum – online lesson planning. Can copy your lesson plans over to the next year, add standards, publish to a “class website” and share with supervisors.
  • Go Guardian – We use this to monitor students on their Chromebooks during  class. Can restrict pages and apps, or push out certain things you want them on.
  • Happy Class App – This is a seating chart randomizer. You can make one class and one chart. If you make more than that you’ll need to pay.
  • ClassCharts – I had been using this and loved it. It was a seating chart maker, randomizer, and behavior recorder all in one. It worked well as my seating chart randomizer but moved to a site-wide subscription model where our school or department would have had to purchase a license.

Other Resources

Appoint.ly – this is how I manage my phone calls with online students. It links multiple calendars so you can show your availability. Also has the feature of working with many people to “vote” on meeting times!

DialMyCalls – While not idea, this allows me to make quick auto-calls to students, parents, and community members. I use this for my online students primarily. I have also used it to send home a call about how students did really well on a performance assessment in French and connect to students who are traveling abroad with me.