Textbooks
University of Texas at Austin:
Français Interactif
From Français Interactif:"Français Interactif was developed at the University of Texas at Austin in the Department of French and Italian. A result of over ten years of collaboration between academic and technical professionals, it was funded and created by the UT Liberal Arts Instruction Technology Services and is currently supported by the Center for Open Educational Resources and Language Learning (a National Foreign Language Resource Center), and the U.S. Department of Education Fund for the Improvement of Post-Secondary Education.
The ultimate goal of the new learning community website is to improve both the textbook and online materials and share pedagogical best practices. A cast of thousands has contributed to Français Interactif: students on the UT study abroad program in Lyon and in our classrooms in Austin, graduate students and faculty, programmers, artists, technicians, native French speakers in France and Austin, and teachers and learners all over the world. "
PDX Open:
Sons et lettres: A Pronunciation Method for Intermediate-level French
From the Description:"Sons et lettres provides a set of classroom materials to train students to hear and produce the sounds of French and to recognize the regular spellings used to represent those sounds in print. The materials are inspired by a desire to help students feel more confident about their French pronunciation and more at home saying the many French words, familiar and unfamiliar, which they encounter in their studies, in French media and in their travels. In our experience, students are not given sufficient preparation to successfully decipher and pronounce French words. These materials are intended to fill that gap and to clear away the confusion that English speakers often feel when they see French words with seemingly mysterious combinations of letters. An accompanying instructor’s manual is forthcoming.
The associated website is an integral part of the method, providing extensive listening and speaking exercises. The Sons et lettres website address is: https://sons-et-lettres.com/"
Download Options
Muhlenberg College:
Spunti: Italiano elementare 1
From the Description:"Welcome to Spunti: Italiano elementare I – a new, unique program, authored by the Italian faculty of Muhlenberg College...There is no lack of Open Educational Resources (OERs) in Italian; quite the contrary. One can find a jungle of disparate materials of varied quality, which are hard to locate and synthesize into a coherent course. This is why we created Spunti: a free, coherent, agile, functional, and culturally rich course for Muhlenberg students, and hopefully for students elsewhere, as well.
The Spunti pressbook is a work in progress, and we would greatly appreciate any feedback, suggestions, and adaptations that anyone can give us. Our hope for Spunti is that it can benefit from the input of Italian instructors and students from around the world."
The Death of Ivan Ilich:
An Electronic Study Edition of the Russian Text
From the Description:"Edited and annotated by Gary R. Jahn, University of Minnesota
The Russian text of The Death of Ivan Ilich is presented for study in various formats: accompanied by an English translation; fully glossed, with explanatory and interpretive annotations; and supplemented by introductory remarks and an extensive bibliography."
Courseware
COERLL | The Center for Open Educational Resources and Language Learning
From COERLL:
"The Center for Open Educational Resources & Language Learning (COERLL) is one of 16 National Foreign Language Resource Centers (LRC's) funded by the U.S. Department of Education. The overall mission of these federally-funded centers is to improve the teaching and learning of foreign languages by producing resources (materials and best practices) that can be profitably employed in a variety of settings.
COERLL's work is organized around seven basic areas:
- Applied linguistic research
- Teaching materials
- Language assessment
- Teacher development
- Less commonly taught languages
- Outreach and dissemination
COERLL's mission is to produce and disseminate Open Educational Resources (OER) for the Internet public (e.g., online language courses, reference grammars, assessment tools, corpora, etc.). The term OER refers to any educational material offered freely for anyone to use, typically involving some permission to re-mix, improve, and redistribute. Thus, COERLL seeks to promote a culture of collaboration that lies at the heart of the Open Education movement. In addition, COERLL aims to reframe foreign language education in terms of bilingualism and/or multilingualism. As such, all COERLL resources strive to represent more accurately language development and performance along dialectal and proficiency continua."
Dante in Translation | Open Yale Courses
Dante in Translation (OYC) is an introduction to Dante and his cultural milieu through a critical reading of the Divine Comedy and selected minor works (Vita nuova, Convivio, De vulgari eloquentia, Epistle to Cangrande). An analysis of Dante’s autobiography, the Vita nuova, establishes the poetic and political circumstances of the Comedy’s composition. Readings of Inferno, Purgatory and Paradise seek to situate Dante’s work within the intellectual and social context of the late Middle Ages, with special attention paid to political, philosophical and theological concerns. Topics in the Divine Comedy explored over the course of the semester include the relationship between ethics and aesthetics; love and knowledge; and exile and history.
City Tech OER | Spanish for Heritage Speakers
Spanish for Heritage Speakers is an intermediate course intended for students who were immersed in or exposed to the language while growing up, but who have received little or no formal instruction in Spanish. Strengthens students’ competence in the oral and written standard varieties of Spanish by building on their previous knowledge to expand their vocabulary, strengthen their command of grammar, and achieve more confidence and fluency in speaking and writing while learning about the diversity of the Hispanic cultures. The skills acquired in this course will help reinforce students’ bilingual abilities and cultural competence.