Open University
In this section you will find:
The Courses - Click on the course code to go to the course's OU page
LXR122 Action in French Level 1, 10 points.
This is primarily a residential summer school in Caen with a TMA to complete when you get home. It's very hard work, most enjoyable and a great way to meet other students - really important when you are distance learning. You can find out more about it at my web page "Caen" under "Summer Schools" in the menu.
L120 Ouverture Level 1, 30 points.
This is the first of the three main OU courses, at about 'O' level standard. No summer school, but try to do LXR122 (above). You can find out how we tackled it here.
L221 is now L211 Envol Level 2, new 60 points.
The new course uses the materials from the old L221 with some additional stuff to bump it up the 60 points. There is a compusory summer school which I'm really looking forward to in 2003.
L210 is now L310 Level 3, 60 points.
Mise au Point is based on French Language and Culture and I'll be doing it in 2004.
Student Toolkits
Douglas Stacy pointed out to me that the OU provides, free of charge to its students, a series of nine booklets known as "The Student Toolkit". He suggests that three are of particular interest to students of French. As I had absolutely no reason to doubt my good friend I sent away for them too!
- Student Toolkit No 2 - Revision and examinations
- Student Toolkit No 4 - Reading and note-taking
- Student Toolkit No 5 - Essay and report writing
OU FirstClass on-line conferencing
If you are reading this the chances are that you are already using the Open University's FirstClass Conferencing System. It's a great way to keep in touch and to keep morale boosted when it all seems as though it is going terribly wrong!
A conference is not a whole bunch of stuffy people sitting around in a building discussing serious stuff - it's a bunch of like-minded people having fun, learning together, and exchanging knowledge, jokes, graphics, and useful bits of info.
You can tap into over 700 different groups in a huge range of topics, from Cats to The Archers, from your own course conference to rocket science (actually I'm not sure about the rocket science!) all by sending your messages to a "bulletin board" where anyone with a username and a password can tap in, read and respond. If you are an OU student and not familiar with FC, go on to your student page, armed with the ID number and password they sent you (amongst all the other junk) and log into FirstClass by clicking on the key and entering your username (which cannot be changed) and your password (which can.
You can use your own web browser, but you'd be better off downloading the software (to be found in "IT Sites" on your student home page), or you might be able to get the CD from the OU. If you're going to download do it when the internet isn't busy because it does take quite a long time.
Eventually you will have peeked into the huge folder and put your favorites into your home page and we'll be hearing from you soon!
If you have any problems with it do e-mail me and I'll try to help - I'm no expert- but I know lots of people who are!
