Target Language Text Resources
To support teachers in implementing multiliteracies pedagogy, this repository offers a wide range of online resources to find authentic written, audio, audiovisual, and visual texts in a variety of languages. Click on a language below to see the list of resources.
How do we define target language texts?+
Target language texts have three important components:
- They are multimodal, meaning that they reflect written, audiovisual, visual, or digital modes, or a combination of two or more of these modes.
- They are socially and culturally situated, meaning that they reflect the products, practices, and perspectives of their creators and intended audiences.
- They are created for some real-world purpose other than language learning.
Target language texts in this repository are thus things like podcasts, newspapers, movie trailers, and infographics. They are not things like grammar guides, scripted dialogues for beginning learners, or vocabulary lists.
Do you have an online resource that would be appropriate for the repository?+
If you have an online resource that meets our definition of a target language text and that would be appropriate for the repository, please complete this form, and the Literacies for Language Education project directors will review your request. If they determine that the text is appropriate for inclusion, it will be added to the repository.
- Jadaliyya (ezine from the Arab Studies Institute)
- Arabic Voices (listening development)
- Al-hakawati (stories & tales in Arabic)
- LangMedia (authentic & non-authentic materials, some in Egyptian colloquial Arabic)
- 7iber (Arabic news blog)
- One World Now (authentic reading materials in Modern Standard Arabic)
- Talk in Arabic – Lebanese TV shows
- TED Talks in Arabic:
- From Yemen, TEDxTaiz
- From Jordan, TEDxAmman
- From Lebanon, TEDxBeirut
- From Yemen, TEDxTaiz
- Teaching Arabic Songs
- Arabic Videos & Vlogs with English Subtitles
- East Asian audiobooks
- Reader's tool
- Videos
- Print texts
- News
- Resources for Teachers
- Cultural podcast for Chinese learners
- MandarinHQ (audio and video clips with L1 speakers)
- Koine Greek
- Animated Antiquity (cartoon representations of Greece, Rome, and beyond)
- Magister Craft (Animated Latin, YouTube channel)
- French flicks (the schedule for all French screenings in America)
- Cécile Lainé blog
- Madame’s musings
- Histoires à écouter
- List of French Sites
- 7 jours sur la planète
- RFI, Les voix du monde
- France2 afternoon news
- Français intéractif (has short interviews with native speakers for novices)
- France Info
- French YouTube channels
-
Quotidien (French culture, politics, society, etc. program from TFI)
Website and YouTube channel - AATF Pinterest page
- French digital books and online resources
- Tagesschau News
- Deutsche Welle and materials specific for teaching
- Goethe Institut
-
Materials for teaching German film
- Nachrichtenleicht (easy to understand news)
- German TV (great site for teachers to access to German TV programs)
- German TV w/children’s shows
- News show for children
- Reading and listening texts on topics such as education and environment
-
Planet Schule (Schulfernsehen)
- Planet Wissen (videos and texts on a variety of topics)
- German podcasts
- 5 Authentic Hindi Teaching Resources
- Learn Hindi from Authentic Sources, Hindi Language Blog
- Native Languages of the Americas (list of resources)
- California Language Archive
- Virtual Library – American Indians
- Grassroots Indigenous Multimedia
- Ethnos Project
- Indigenous Digital Archive
- Podcast on teaching indigenous languages (with some authentic materials links)
- Waking up Ojibwe
- 68 voces / 68 corazones - An animated series narrated in the 68 indigenous languages of Mexico
- Radio Arlecchino
- Danteworlds
- Italian News & Culture - Teche, Raiscuola
- Italian Podcast Directory
- Italian Encyclopedia
- Maxxi museum website
- At home in Japan
- Japan videos
- JLPT Stories (podcast)
- Japanese for Kids (online resources)
- Mina Luna Japanese (YouTube channel)
- HANGUL-RO BOJA! (authentic Korean reading & video)
- TV Commercials and Korean Culture
- The Korean Wave
- News Discourse in South Korea
- Digitized Persian language materials from the Library of Congress
- Infographics
- Spanish proficiency exercises from UT Austin
- TED Talks in Spanish
- Radio Ambulante podcasts
- Voz/ces podcasts of interviews with Twin Cities Spanish speakers
- Alt.latino podcasts, Latinx arts and culture
- The Cosmic Barrio music
- Learn Spanish wandering in Madrid
- Learn Spanish in the streets of Barcelona
- Authentic Spanish books for kids
- Authentic poems for novice learners
- Club Mundo Kids (educational YouTube channel)
- Resources for learning Vietnamese (organized by proficiency level)
- Global Storybooks Portal
- Finding OER for Language Courses
- Facebook:
- AATF/AATSP/AATG/etc. groups
- search for the name of a TV show from the target culture in FB. The FB pages often have short videos introducing the series, or a compilation of 'special moments'.
- YouTube:
- search for commercials/ads by the brand name of a common product in the L2 culture
- find the official YouTube channel for a University in the target country/culture. These channels almost always include short admissions videos made for high schoolers (native speakers of the L2), plus longer texts like interviews with professors, etc.
- World Meteorological Organization (language can be set at top of page)
- “Humans of…” series (e.g., Humans of Paris)
- Radio Garden (live world news around the globe)
- Telescope Film: International film database
- LESLLA: Mother tongue online resources
- LangMedia: Target language texts and other resources for dozens of LCTLs
- Learning with Music (music videos & lessons in a range of languages)
This repository of target language texts is based upon suggestions from colleagues at CARLA, the language departments at the University of Minnesota, participants in CARLA summer institutes, and other colleagues.
Thanks to all for your contributions!
