About Me and ielanguages.com
My name is Jennifer and I love studying foreign languages. I graduated from Clio
High School in 2000 as valedictorian with a 4.0 GPA. I received
my Bachelor's Degree from the University
of Michigan-Flint in 2004, where I double majored in French &
Linguistics and French & International Studies as well as minored
in International & Global Studies. I was a tutor for my university
in Linguistics, French and German as well as in the Writing
Center and I was also involved in the Linguistics Club and International
Student Organization.
I studied Québécois French at Université Laval in Québec City for 5 weeks in the summer of 2003. I completed my Master's degree in Linguistics with a specialization in Teaching English as a Second Language at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan, in 2007. I was the Graduate Assistant for the Linguistics Department in 2005-2006 as well as an ESL instructor in the Intensive English Program.
After moving to France in late 2006, I
worked as an
English Language Assistant in Annecy, France, from October 2006 until
April 2007 and in Cluses from October 2007 to April 2008. Afterwards, I was an English lecturer at the Université
de Savoie in Chambéry from 2008 to 2010. I am the author of the new edition of the Say It in French phrasebook
In July 2011, I relocated from France to Australia to begin my PhD in Languages & Linguistics. I have just begun my research on the vocabulary presented in first and second year French textbooks used at Anglophone universities and how well they teach authentic, informal French as well as the vocabulary of other Francophone countries and regions besides France. I hope my research yields pedagogical recommendations that teachers and students will find useful on the teaching and learning of real French (as it is actually spoken across the globe) in addition to using technology to aid in the comprehension and acquisition of informal vocabulary.
My research interests are: second language acquisition and pedagogy, L2 vocabulary and phonological acquisition, informal and non-standard language, integrating technology into materials design, and developing autonomy in language learning. To summarize, I'm most interested in authenticity, autonomy and technology in language learning and prefer to focus on vocabulary and speaking/listening rather than on grammar and reading/writing.
You can view my C.V. if you're interested in my accomplishments and you can download some papers I wrote for my university coursework on the Linguistics page. Other than languages, I am also interested in world travel, Canadian and Australian studies, world & military history, geography, jazz & big band music, astronomy, Greek & Roman mythology, Egyptology, biology, and pathology. I've uploaded most of my travel photos to web albums, and you can read my blog if you'd like to learn more about my everyday life in France/Australia and learning French. I am also a huge animal lover and miss my dog, Brandy, who is in the US, and my cat, Canaille, who is in France, so you will see photos of them often on the blog.
You may also find me on several other sites, such as Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, Facebook, FriendFeed, StumbleUpon, LinkedIn, and my French Listening podcast is available through iTunes.
This website began as a collection of notes from my high school French class in 1997. I will be forever grateful to Madame Refice, my first French teacher, for giving me an understanding and appreciation of the French language that led me to create this website. I've been continually adding more languages and linguistic-related material over the years. The academic and teaching ESL pages were written by me during my undergraduate and graduate coursework. Seven of the language tutorials were written by me, and I wrote them while learning the language. (I don't consider myself completely fluent in any language except French.) The tutorials focus on the basic grammar and vocabulary points of each language, but I am trying to incorporate more authentic language, slang, and informal ways of speaking. The rest of the tutorials were written by generous volunteers who also want to help others learn languages as much as I do.
I want to thank Malin for helping with the Swedish page; Natasha, Emir, and Sven for helping with the Croatian page; Jan
and Peter for correcting the Dutch page; Daniel Roche for writing
the Icelandic tutorial; Johan Petur for writing the Faroese tutorial;
Vremita Desectia for writing the Indonesian tutorial; Olavo Germano
de Sousa Neto for writing the Portuguese tutorial; Ivan Karmin for
writing the Ukrainian tutorial; Stephen VanZuylen for writing
the Russian tutorial; Josh Pirie for writing the Finnish tutorial; Ömer
& Mehmet Sener for writing the Turkish tutorial; Mert for writing the Afrikaans tutorial; Brandon for writing the Latin tutorial; Jonathan for writing the Catalan tutorial; Rafael for adding
Portuguese vocabulary to the Romance Languages page and Myles for helping
with the IPA transcriptions. In addition, I would like to thank David and his family for doing all of the French recordings, as well as Marina, Renzo, Corrado, Sabrina, Olavo Germano, Krystallia, Mariska, and Sarien for doing the Russian, Spanish, Italian, German, Portuguese, Swedish, Dutch and Afrikaans recordings.
This site will always be free because I believe that education should be free. However, Paypal donations are very welcome since I am still paying off my graduate school loans. If you are not comfortable using Paypal, please e-mail me at ielanguages [at] gmail.com for a mailing address in France, Australia or the US.
French Language Tutorial 2nd edition is now available! The updated edition of FLT is now available with more vocabulary, sample sentences, and cultural information as well as newly recorded mp3s. The PDF e-book is available for immediate download for $14.95 or if you prefer a paperback coil-bound book, it can be printed on demand and shipped world-wide by Lulu.com for $29.95. Please visit the Store for more information and to order online.
Don't forget to check out my published books!
