Starting Free French Course with the Toronto Public Library
I’ve taken up seriously learning French for a week, as of this writing, dedicating an hour or two every day. It’s been great because I like the learning material that I’m using: It’s called Fablang, where you can read the short stories in French and then English.
But the Fablang is mostly for reading and is not good for practicing pronunciation. So I did a bit of research to find another learning material. Then I found a free online course that Toronto Public Library provides for anyone who has a library card.
I was excited about this course because the description of the course literally said “Proper pronunciation is important to good communication and this course helps you master the best pronunciations.” Okey, let’s believe the word “master” and see how it goes.
Register the Toronto Public Library’s Free French Course
The title of the course is Beginning Conversational French [sic].
It took me a few minutes to register for the course. I just went to the register page and filled out a few personal information. That’s all.
As a premise, you need a PC — also check the recommended browser on the requirement.
Before registering, I recommend you to read the syllabus, which means outline of the course, to check the duration, starting date or about the final exam of this course. Even though it’s a free course, you may want to make sure whether you can commit to the schedule.
For the registration, you need your address, phone number and library card number; I didn’t have a library card so I used my partner’s and it worked.
The Beginning Conversational French Course
After the registration, you can immediately go to the dashboard (above) and it displays all the information you need. I really like that the interface is simple and easy to use — and no add, of course. You can review all the lessons and my progress at once.
As you can see, these lessons are focusing on basic conversation such as travel or shopping. From my experience of English learning, this type of material is not effective for improving grammar and vocabulary or even speaking. So I will focus on boosting my confidence in pronunciation.
I decided to allocate time in this course for about 30 minutes and an hour for a reading in Fablang. As of April 16, I will start the course and let’s see how much it will improve my pronunciation.
So that is all for today. I just wanted to share the free learning material for people who want to practice French pronunciation. I will talk about the review of this course in the future. Enjoy learning!!
