Our learners spend hours on Instagram scrolling through photos of their classmates and bloggers. And that’s not all they do there. More and more young people are also using it as a messaging service. So, what if we used this platform, which is wildly popular with young people all over the world, to teach French? What could be better to attract learners to continue discovering French?
There are already hundreds of accounts that offer French speakers (beginner or advanced level) a new word or expression every day, including French Words , Sound French , A Cup of French , Boîte au FLE and my own account, France.Say . Most of the accounts target A-level learners and offer easy words and expressions, while I decided to target advanced learners. The infographics of Sound French and A Cup Of French are accompanied by an audio recording that helps learners pronounce the words better.
These accounts capitalize on learners’ interest in continuing their learning by discovering new words on Instagram. You’ll also find teachers and language centers encouraging learners to post photos to complement a class activity or enter a contest with hashtags to group contributions. Others post photos and ask learners to leave comments to create a sort of conversation thread.
But there are also accounts that offer mini-activities to get learners more involved. Here are some examples of innovative uses of Instagram to teach FLE:
Arnaud’s Language Kitchen
ALK offers, like many other accounts, words and expressions with explanations in English, but it also offers two exercises: scrambled words and 4 mistakes.
Learners can leave their answers in the comments and Arnaud will correct them. A good activity to continue learning on Instagram.
Komal_AF
A young teacher from Pune, Komal shares words and expressions around a theme. For the past few weeks, she has been sharing idiomatic expressions about colors.
But she also uses Instagram stories in a creative way. During the week of the Francophonie 2019, she shared ten words in the stories and then asked questions to test if we understood the meaning of the words.
From time to time, she also posts questions to encourage her subscribers to speak to her in French. She also uses these conversations to introduce new expressions.
Kanchan AF
Another young teacher from Pune (it’s a city of gifted teachers) also used stories to encourage her learners to use French even after class, to talk about their weekend, etc.
France.Say
Although I mainly use Instagram to share infographics on French words and expressions, I also took advantage of the stories to offer exercises and encourage interactions between visitors and me. Here is an example:
I shared a quote posted on the Figaro account to discover my subscribers’ favorite quotes/proverbs.
Another example:
Last year, I posted a series of infographics about different earring words. I then posted a short video of all the words and did a little quiz to see if my followers understood the difference between the terms.
