Frogs in the Web: Two Internet Courses Activating French Fluency Online.

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8

Distance Education; French; Higher Education; Internet; Language Fluency; Language Proficiency; Online Courses; Second Language Instruction; Second Language Learning; Teaching Methods

This paper describes two Internet-based French language courses that help students acquire fluency in a nontraditional format. The Annenberg/CPB Project's "French in Action Online" was originally offered as a free online adjunct to a television course. The Coastline Community College's French 186AB French Topics Online is a stand-alone Internet-based course that derives much of its content from the same French in Action video-lesson series, though it uses French in Action as a launching pad rather than a home base. Both courses offer students instructor-prepared questions to help them understand the main story details and grammatical points addressed in each lesson. The Annenberg/CPB questions focus on understanding the television series, while the Coastline course questions focus on communication. Both courses offer forum areas to stimulate critical thinking. In both courses, students who are the most active progress the farthest toward fluency. Regular, individual contact with the instructor motivates students to become active. Online students experience an immediacy in their communications that energizes their work. Students report that their understanding of spoken French increases with the broadened contact with the language. (SM)

2003

ED471310