Unlock French In Real Life for Your Students
Beyond The Classroom
I wholeheartedly believe classroom instruction is wonderful. It's in the classroom and thanks to teachers that we deeply understand grammar rules, new vocabulary, and gain appreciation for cultural nuance.
The one thing I’ve always struggled with, even with my best teachers in the very best classroom settings, has been understanding MORE than just my teacher.
When learning a foreign language, every student needs more real world practice. It doesn’t take a master’s degree in education to agree with that statement, it’s common sense. The problem is: getting that practice isn’t always easy. Especially when the classroom is in our home country and opportunities to immerse are limited.
That’s where the French In Real Life project comes in.
Hundreds of clips of spoken French, as it sounds in real life, are available for your students. For students in high school we adhere to COPP and FERPA guidelines and do not sell user data.
For programs that want to give their students more immersive practice, the French In Real Life project serves as a stream of additional listening practice and audio content in French. It's the bridge to immersion no matter where your students are.
You can use it in your classroom or offer it as additional practice.
Note: we plan to rollout a teacher dashboard, letting you invite and monitor student progress by November 2025
Our Methodology
I’m not a teacher. I am passionate about language learning. French is my 4th language (5th if I count Latin, which I don't as I’ve forgotten it just about completely). And over the past 5 years, I have also watched my own children go from no speech to speaking English and Mandarin and now French, too. This project was in part inspired by their way of learning language.
My goal with the project is to source content that is 1) engaging; 2) by native speakers, and 3) fast-paced. As such, there is some challenging content on this site. Most content comes from podcasts, some from advertisements, and others from music. I cut the audio into short clips on average about 16 seconds long (the shortest on site is 3 seconds long and the longest is 54 seconds long).
Each audio clip is paired with a dictee-style transcription “quiz”. This quiz is a form that breaks up words into textboxes and allows learners to type what they hear, add appropriate accents easily, and see results in real time. My goal with textboxes is to give students (and myself) a form of anchor or hint to hone our ear, we know what we're listening for. When a learner begins the quiz, the audio clip is played on repeat until the quiz is completed.
I used podcasts as the content is readily available, natural French, and free for learning. I love the clips of podcasts because it forces our brains to listen out of context for what's said.
Every clip on site is accessible no matter a learner’s level thanks to the sliding scale “levels”. When the level is set to 100% blank (the default setting), the entire transcript is shown as text boxes for the learner to complete. At any percentage below 100% blank, “anchor words” appear starting at the most advanced level based on estimated CEFR levels.
Learners set their level and complete what they can based on what they hear. The goal is to hone our ears to understand fast French in real life.
I find this especially essential in a language like French, which, in the wild, can have a pace in excess of 250 wpm (compared to fast-paced English which is around 180-200 wpm). Through the exercises on site, learners will improve their confidence and ear for liaisons, general pace of the language, and the natural flow of French in real life.
I love listening as a method for improving my language. An active listener will be able to internalize idioms, grammar usage (not rules), vocab use, tone, and accents. Paired with a traditional classroom, this makes for a far more confident Francophone.
For Your Program
- Hundreds of listening exercises
- Dictée-style practice for your students
- Coming Soon: Teacher Dashboard
- Coming Soon: Levels and Recommendations based on results
