Software/Website Evaluation #1

Laura’s French Language Blog at http://french.about.com/b/

Websites about the French language are almost everywhere and I found that a lot of blogs out there for the French language can be very cultural at the same time. An interesting amount of blogs about French are kept by people from an English speaking country that live somewhere in France. There are even more blogs out there that document an English speaker’s adventure in France. Unfortunately, there are quite a few French language blogs that try to get you to purchase something from their site, such as software or a book published by the author of the blog. For my first website evaluation, I would like to discuss the blog that I found to contain a lot of information that did not try to get me to spend money on something: http://french.about.com/b/

The information on this blog is free but the user in bombarded (just like with other websites) with ads. It is sometimes difficult to know where to look.

The blog is entitled Laura's French Language Blog and it is located on the about.com website. If you are not familiar about the website, it is "an online neighborhood of hundreds of helpful experts, eager to share their wealth of knowledge with visitors." For more information about the general site, you can click the link: www.aboutmediakit.com/about/

If you have ever type a French grammar question into google.com, there is a good possibility that you will be directed to her site. Her blog is a good source for learning more about the French language.

Laura K. Lawless, the contributor to Laura’s French Language Blog is one of the 750+ guides on about.com. She is a non-native speaker of French but has a good level of French. The purpose of her site is to provide the learner with information about the French language and Francophone cultures. Her site mainly serves as a site that will help the learner understand the written word.

Her blog has a large number of followers from both sides of the pond. One strength of her website that makes up for her non-native skills in French is the myriad of Francophones from all over the world that visit her site and leave comments and/or corrections to her posts.

The interesting thing about her target audience is that it is so broad. You can find useful information for middle school students, high school students and adults just starting out in French to more advanced information such as how to write a formal business letter. The information that she posts is extremely helpful for learning more about the French language and culture. It is a practical blog for someone who would like to one day travel to or live in France along with being an excellent resource.

Her blog contains a lot of information and could be a little overwhelming the first time you look at it as she posts on it several times a day. In her blog, one can find lessons and quizzes, word a day posts, audio files, articles, translations, and other useful information (such as traveling to France) and links (such as links to dictionaries or videos). Feedback for French learners can be instant from online quizzes and French proficiency tests can assess the student’s level. The problem about the tests and quizzes is that they are completely multiple-choice. Students can also practice by exchanging comments with native speakers in French and can also have their questions answered about the French language or culture.

One way that this blog could be improved is by adding video such as presentation of vocabulary words, video of her trip to Grenoble, or leaving a section for native French speakers to leave a video of themselves on the blog. Another way to improve the blog would be to make it easier to access and use is to remove the numerous ads. I am sure that this would be impossible because the ads most likely pay for her paycheck.