You may have heard that websites can help students improve their French learning skills.
Your colleagues might use them and rave about how the students are so much more excited (and efficient, cooperative and self-sufficient) now that they have brought the internet to the classroom.
In addition to orienting you into this web world, in this post, I’ll be sharing 12 French learning sites that your students will be stoked to surf.
Needless to say, this is the ultimate guide to checking and learning new words, idioms and structures. One of the most reputable French dictionaries has put its entire content online for free.
Your students can simply type in the word they want to search and the results are displayed at a glance. The Larousse website includes a French-French dictionary, a French thesaurus, a dictionary of antonyms, an encyclopedia and bilingual dictionaries.
What else could you ask for? Oh, this: a conjugations checker, forums, games and a French cooking dictionary—all of which you’ll find on Larousse!
Taking a step back from the traditional textbook approach, FluentU encourages users to learn the French language in a more natural way. The language program presents students with authentic French videos like movie clips, music videos and inspirational talks.
This content is made approachable through accurate interactive subtitles in French and English (both of which can be turned on or off), which allow students to hover over any word of a video to see its definition and add it as a flashcard for later review. Students can create flashcard decks and are also quizzed on the words used in the videos they watch.
You can assign specific videos, flashcards or audio content for students to complete, then view each individual student’s learning progress and accuracy. So students can enjoy the content they’ll likely find entertaining or interesting, and you’ll also get insight into what words and concepts they could use additional help with.
Now, that’s a name that needs no introduction. To check a conjugation and your tableau de conjugaison (conjugation board), which includes a verb’s conjugation for all tenses and modes, we’ve all had to carry our little red book. Until now.
Like Larousse, Bescherelle has put its content online, allowing your students to look for a verb and review its conjugation in a single-page format. Think of it as the Google of French conjugation, and it is organized and efficient. There are also app versions available.
Keep in mind that there are no translations at all, a sign that the website is made for natives and is as authentic as it gets.
This free website offers numerous great resources primarily for beginner and intermediate students. Developed by the European broadcast network TV5Monde, it includes 80 activities to learn French that are all ranked by level.
Your students can start by taking a quick test to determine their exact level. Parlons Français includes varied multimedia content and learning modules comprised of articles, web documentaries, games and web challenges. All lessons are accompanied by exercises and memos to recap key phonetics, grammar, vocabulary and culture points.
You can easily incorporate the website in your French class, either as complementary activities that students can do at home or together in class using a projector and screen.
Although more limited than Parlons français, this is another free website that will greatly help your French students master the language of Molière.
While it is set in a bilingual format, BBC French offers high-quality content. Lessons and courses include video and audio content with transcripts, interactive games, vocabulary cards, grammar explanations and exercises. It is mostly targeted at beginners, but it goes beyond this level.
Equally fun for children and adults, we particularly like the format of their French syllabus, which is especially efficient for teachers who like to stay organized.
Now, don’t get discouraged by the website’s old-school design—this is a particularly effective resource to introduce to all students who struggle with French grammar and conjugation.
With an extensive library of courses and exercises that discuss the head-scratching parts of French (such as the rules of French grammar, conjugation and spelling), we particularly love that all points are explained in a concise manner and illustrated with numerous examples. Students can also take a test at the end of the lesson to verify their understanding of the subject they’ve just learned.
This is great if you want your students to prepare (or review) a complex point, especially for your intermediate and advanced students. The site’s forum and pen pals sections can be beneficial to all of your students.
What French teacher never felt overwhelmed by the spate of questions from their students about the origins of a seemingly nonsensical French idiom?
This website makes it easy for you! With an almost endless list of French idioms explained, this is the ultimate guide to making teaching idioms easy and interesting.
Each entry details the origins and meaning of most common idioms with historical facts and anecdotes about the expressions you’re looking for. It also includes examples to show proper usage in context and translations!
This is another great resource for which we can thank the European broadcast network TV5Monde. Also free, it focuses on French literature and is mainly dedicated to your advanced students (or those that have a knack for words).
You can get instant access to over 400 French classics online without registration. It’s an excellent resource for helping you structure your lessons, thanks to its collection of summaries and commentaries about the author, novel, essay or poem that you are studying.
Named after the famous Greek historian, this is a website that is actually used by French natives in their History classroom—largely because it’s the most extensive, informative and interactive of its kind.
Free or paid, this is a great way for you to introduce a part of French culture and history that is often overlooked by French teachers. It can incentivize your students to discover parts of the French culture that are often reserved for more advanced learners, and as such, offers a challenge to your most motivated and curious students.
Because this is mainly designed for French natives, the language is as authentic as it gets. Use Herodote’s history courses and articles with your advanced students, but feel free to use the chronologies and flashcards with your intermediate students.
There is a reason that flashcards have aided students for decades in everything from addition to foreign language vocabulary: they work! Often used to supplement material at home, flashcards can be an excellent resource.
To use them in the classroom, consider a web-based tool such as Quizlet, which offers online flashcards covering a high variety and volume of French vocabulary. Having students create their own set or engage with sets available can reinforce the material they learned over the course of several weeks.
There’s the option to include Quizlet Live, which engages students through games and healthy competition. Tons of blog posts also have lots of ideas on how to use Quizlet in the classroom.
For an abundance of free resources, look no further than YouTube. There, you can find French content for all audiences.
There are tons of YouTube channels for learning French, depending on the topics of your lessons and your students’ interests. The videos could be specifically about language learning topics or anything else under the sun.
For example, the beloved children’s series Le Petit Nicolas now has its own YouTube channel, as does Kaamelott, a kooky take on King Arthur in the spirit of Monty Python. Popular French cooking channels, such as the L’atelier de Roxane, can also complement units on the imperative or food vocabulary.
Loaded with a variety of premium French resources like worksheets and quizzes which you can adapt to suit your curriculum, Teachers Pay Teachers is a website that is more suited for you as a teacher than your students.
You could also find charts, which allow students to draw comparisons between objects while improving their vocabulary. To take visuals to the next level, find games that employ more advanced vocabulary. Whatever material you need, this website is likely to have it, and it saves you a ton of work, too!
Why Websites Are Perfect Tools for Your French Students
Students and Internet: A match made in heaven
Your students live and breathe the internet. Let’s not fool ourselves: Long gone are the days when they’d rush for a bilingual dictionary to learn everything about an unknown word.
Going online to check the meaning, spelling, structure or verb should not be mistaken as a demonstration of our era’s laziness. Rather, it ought to be celebrated as this generation’s desire for efficiency.
Instead of fighting the tools that your students prefer to use, help them by pointing them in the right direction—towards the websites that will help them progress and not “waste their time.”
Culture and curiosity
Websites offer a diverse, endless range of content and knowledge—think of it as the ultimate library. They facilitate the learning process by helping students take control of what they want to learn, based on their interests.
While not all websites are worthwhile, the discovery process resembles the journey to finding the perfect book. In short, your students demonstrate a sense of independence and ownership when they get online to find answers and learn.
Increased familiarity and exposure
Keep in mind that for your students, browsing the web is how they can travel without leaving the comfort of their homes. Think of it as an instantaneous, free and inclusive window to the French world.
By exposing themselves regularly to French websites, your students will progressively assimilate frequent terms and stumble upon new content.
Ultimately, they are a great and affordable way to recreate a close-to-real immersion experience. Websites don’t only contain written content, but also incorporate videos, audio and videoconferencing that can develop their listening and speaking skills.
Authentic language
What can be more French than an authentic French website, written by native French speakers for other French speakers?
True, your students may not necessarily want to learn sophisticated or literary French first (the French that most teachers want to teach first), but like English, French is a varied, comprehensive language with multiple styles and levels of speech.
If your students veer from this list of websites and end up on ones that use argot (slang), for example, know that it will actually increase their understanding of the French language as a whole, but you need to let them know how it fits within the language. Teach them that slang is slang, it is heavily connoted and should not be used in official or work contexts.
Additionally, languages evolve. Websites and social media are often the first to reflect changes to the language. Rather than fight it, guide your students and teach them what the correct or best possible forms are. Explain the evolutions, and how to best use them in which context.
How to Maximize Your Students’ French Learning Skills Using Websites
Give your students options, but let them pick what sites work best for them. It’s easy to be all over the place when using websites, so make sure to focus on a handful of good ones rather than trying to do too much and gobbling up data from all of them.
Rest assured that the websites listed are all worth your students’ time, but make an effort to familiarize yourself with them before introducing the sites to your students. For example, know which website serves what purpose, what tools are most useful, etc.
Here are some additional tips that will maximize your students’ learning skills with these websites:
Teach students how to be organized
Enter bookmarks. Make sure your students mark the websites that work best for them as favorites in their home browser. This will save time and is such a simple step that produces huge benefits—almost completely ensuring that your students will visit those sites regularly on their own.
Also, the main challenge when using websites with your French students is to teach them that they need to be proactive, as well as which methods to use to make their online learning more efficient. Don’t expect your students to master content just by surfing digital pages—that’s just not how it works!
Encourage your classes to:
Look for words they don’t know using the Larousse virtual dictionaries
Verify grammar and conjugation using the Bescherelle website
Make their own flashcards using copied-and-pasted content from the French websites you are using together
Constantly review these cards—as they would with books!
Include these sites in your teaching routine
Instill a sense of curiosity in your students. It’s always beneficial to introduce vetted French websites to your students with a sense of discovery. Pique their interest by letting them know why it’s interesting, but don’t reveal too much either.
Make sure that you are regularly introducing websites to your students; it cannot be a one-off thing, otherwise, the purpose of immersion will be lost.
Be precise in what you want your students to learn and browse. These websites all include a comprehensive selection of courses, videos and pages, so make sure to give your French learners a link and precise directions of what you expect from them.
Encourage students to use online tests to prepare for the big exam
That’s right: Let your students know that there are tons of free tools online that can help them improve their scores dramatically. Simple and easy, online tests are a great way for students to quiz themselves while building confidence.
Guide your students at the start and let them know exactly which tests they should check out. These tests can also serve as graded exercises, but keep in mind that most of these websites already put the answers online.
The internet has incredible resources that are just waiting to be used.
It won’t be too long until you realize just how effective these websites are for your students, and how much they love them.
