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Contact us with comments and questions about this collection. Visuals for Foreign Language Instruction web site for educational and research purposes only. Any other use of these materials, including but not limited to commercial or scholarly reproductions, redistribution, publication, or transmission, is strictly prohibited without written permission.

Visuals for Foreign Language Instruction is a free gallery of images hosted by the University of Pittsburgh's Digital Research Library. The gallery contains nearly 500 drawings of people conversing, scenes in houses and buildings, and objects commonly found in houses. You'll also find drawings scenes in cities, in stores, and in nature. The visuals are all drawn cartoon style without any text or speech bubbles. Applications for Education If you're looking for some visual prompts to use in your language lessons, take a look at the gallery at Visuals for Foreign Language Instruction. You can search the gallery by keyword or simple browse through the collection. 

The FLTmag is a practice-oriented online publication dedicated to the field of foreign language technology. Its goal is to provide useful and practical information about technology integration in the classroom such as emerging technologies, interesting books, classroom projects, institutional initiatives, conferences and symposiums and language centers worldwide. Its hoping to become a public forum promoting engaged and productive discussions around burning issues in the field of language technology in the U.S. and beyond Currently there is very few things posted, but I see this as eventually becoming the 'go-to' site 

This blog is for English Language Teachers, but the ideas can be used for any language - I could take the same idea he gives for Scrible and use it on another language site and have students respond to the readings.  

Today's Front Pages is a dynamic feature of the Newseum website, providing pdf versions and links to prominent newspapers around the US and around the world. To access today's news in another country and in another language, view the collection via the "Map"view which allows you to choose the region of the world you want to explore. As an activity for world language students, have them research a current event that appears on the front pages of several international papers, in English and in the target language. Use this activity to not only learn about current news and culture, but to explore how a singular event is reported differently by different newspapers.

students work together to accomplish a task - and this is done in the target language.  Students can also change the language of the game they are playing, and log onto a server in a target-language country.  They then learn how to communicate with them.  You can ask students to write about their experiences and perhaps give a narrative about the quest they went on (in the TL, of course)

A plethora of resources for using portfolios, strength-based and asset-based evaluation and assessment for language learning.

Portfolios are a great tool to use in the classroom, especially in a more digital environment where everything is already on the computer. I think that this resource could definitely be something that could help teachers who are unsure of how to use portfolios in their classroom.

I particularly appreciate the broad overview of this site. By including European example, it gives a wider range of perspective. Thanks for sharing

A foreign language assessment directory funded by the U.S.Department of Education which provides a searchable directory of over 200 assessments.  Information provided includes grade and proficiency levels, languages available, skills targeted, and publisher and developer contact information.

This article explains why the United States should build a multilingual workforce and why language instruction should be a national priority.

There are many benefits to language learning and this article shows some of the economic and networking opportunities for multilingual people.

This is a great website. Web 2.0 tools divided into oral, listening, writing, vocab, language specific, IPad Apps, Android Apps, 21. C teaching and learning and more. What is great about this source that everything is neatly organized. Information includes cost of the tool, target audience, usefulness and ease of use rating.

I checked out the author's blog and found lots of interesting topics for discussion. Thanks Sabine!

Sabine, this is a great tool. I checked the apps for practicing listening skills and found a very interesting idea.I shared with my colleagues of Italian language.

A online, peer-reviewed journal on language teaching and learning vis-a-vis technology. Sponsored by the National Foreign Language Resource Center (NFLRC) at the University of Hawai'i and the Center for Language Education and Research (CLEAR) at Michigan State University Edited by Dorothy Chun and Mark Warschauer

This site contains a collection of documents for foreign language advocacy with regional and state elected officials in New York.

Great video resources for all learners with multiple languages and varying topics and proficiency levels. The video library includes and introduction and illustration of standards and the 5 C's, models that cover the interpretive, interpersonal and presentational modes of communication and assessment stragegies

embed-ible resources for all sorts of visual learning.  One could use some of the data visualizations to show the importance of learning a second or third language.

I like how visual the site is. Other than infographics it incorporates videos and other interactives. I even saw Venn Diagrams. It has a lot to offer to use in the classroom for students and outside the classroom with other teachers or administrators.

Lingro is an online dictionary tool that allows users to link any URL address or uploaded document and have all words be linked to the available dictionaries in 11 languages. Once the URL address or document is linked to the Lingro dictionaries every word becomes "clickable" and linked to the program's dictionary to view either a definition in English or a translation in the other languages. This site can be used by World Language teachers and students in a variety of ways to encourage reading comprehension in L2. For teachers use, Lingro can be used for created guided practice activities with L2 readings, such as in an online newspaper or uploaded document. The teacher guides students through the target vocabulary to be learned and promote the discussion of its context use and correct translation. For student use, vocabulary lists can be created with the click of a button which can later be reviewed as flashcards or word lists with examples of use in contextual sentences. This tool aids learners with a quick reference for the meaning of words without having to interrupt a lesson or reading exercise for lengthy amounts of time.

Audio-Lingua offers mp3 recordings in several languages, at several levels of study.  You can select by theme, length, voice (male/female)

Excellent native-speaker audio clips (from 15 - 120 seconds long) available in multiple languages and filtered by proficiency level.

Duolingo is a free language-learning website and crowd-sourced text translation platform. The service is designed so that, as users progress through the lessons, they simultaneously help to translate websites and other documents. It is a way that teachers can provide an additional language learning source to their students, and once each lesson is completed, students read authentic sources and complete activities on the Internet from authentic web-based sources.

A slew of resources to help learners of all ages learn how to read and report on charts and graphs.

Uclass is an online portal for classroom connections around the globe. Similar to ePals, this site allows teachers to create a virtual classroom and then request to connect with other classrooms for pen-pal exchanges or project collaboration. This site promotes cultural awareness and opportunities to easily connect with other classes around the world to arrange projects and virtual exchanges. Once teachers create a site (register) they can add students to the class to create student accounts. From there, one can search for other classes seeking pen-pals. Teachers can post messages for all users to view, suggesting topics of interest to language study or project proposals. Students can send direct messages to other students in other classes and within their own class, provided that the teacher has permitted this function within the class. Easy tool for getting started with global project collaboration and communication exchanges in the target language.

This interactive website is a great classroom tool for authentic, age appropriate readings. It is set up like an average news website, which offers students information on a broad range of topics. In addition, there is a teaching corner that offers free resources and topics for debate!

Create a free account on this French language website so you have access to all the great videos, articles and "dossiers".  For example, there's a one minute animated video that explains why we have the 1 hour time change this weekend.  Great for high school level French students.