ON AIME | WE LIKE
ON AIME | WE LIKE
AUDIBLE
The vast majority of our students have a real passion for reading. They are also, like everyone else, often time-poor. Notwithstanding, they have a real desire to improve their French, and often lament how difficult it is to understand the spoken word. Is there une solution*? Well, yes, it appears there may be.
Audible Inc. is a seller and producer of spoken audio entertainment, information, and educational programming. That is, they sell audio books, and it is no surprise to learn their parent company is Amazon.
Although there is nothing quite like sitting down with a really good book and whiling away the hours, it's also true that being able to listen to your favourite books while exercising, cooking, doing the gardening or even while stuck in traffic n'est pas mal du tout*.
There are nearly 6000 French texts available to download, from the French version of Harry Potter, to Le Petit Prince* and Jules Verne's Vingt Mille Lieues Sous les Mers* as well as a huge range of French textbooks.
The best bit? You can listen to your book at three-quarters of its natural speed. This is a fantastic option for French learners, especially if you have a hard copy of the book in your hands as you listen.
We're so excited by this app's possibilities that we've incorporated it into our new Club de Lecture*. We're starting off with Ensemble, C'est Tout, a book by Anna Gavalda which was made into a movie starring Audrey Tautou and Guillaume Canet. The idea is that we'll listen to a passage in class, check our comprehension, then read the passage in French (a hard copy of the book is included in the cost of the course) and finally translate it into English. Students who download the app can then re-listen to the passages at home, over and over again if necessary. We're confident this approach will vastly improve students' comprehension in a relatively short space of time as well as being really fun. If this sounds like your thing, fais-nous signe*.
*a solution | *is not bad at all | *The Little Prince | *Twenty Thousands Leagues Under the Sea | *Book Club | *let us know