BBC Learning Zone Class Clips

The BBC has a good tradition of supporting the learning of French over the years, but in recent times budget squeezes have led to a drying up of new content. Pity. However, the BBC has done us a really good service by organising a good deal of its French content into short "class clips" which can be used at home or in the classroom.

Here's the page to start with: http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/

You choose French from the menu of subjects, then a topic from the drop-down list. This provides you with a list of available clips from programmes such as Quinze Minutes Plus, Vingt Minutes, Jeunes Francophones and so on. Each clip comes with lesson ideas and a list of formats which can be used to stream the clip. These short videos are great for spicing up a lesson at any point and can easily be exploited in a number of ways. A whole screen option is available for classroom use. Students could easily view them at home. Today with my Y10 class we were working on shopping, so I used one clip on a car boot sale as a starter, plus, at the end of the lesson, an extract from Vingt Minutes, with the famous Michael Fairclough buying souvenirs.

I hope the BBC decide to produce some new material, but in the meantime the Learning Zone clips remain an excellent resource. I wonder if they are viewable outside the UK?

Comments

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Language Teacher Toolkit: Steve Smith's blog

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