Ms. Metcalfe (centre) with French Ambassador, M. Frédéric Grasset (seated left) Minister for Education & Science, Mary Hanafin (seated right) and representatives from NUI Maynooth, NCTE and the French Teachers' Association at the launch by the Minister for Education of www.french.ie

Ms. Mona Metcalfe, Teacher of French at Beech Hill College, has been appointed manager of a new website for teachers of French in Ireland. Minister for Education and Science, Mary Hanafin, TD, recently launched the new website. This online resource came into being as a result of a co-operative project between the National Centre for Technology in Education, the Cultural Service of the French Embassy in Ireland and the Education Department, NUI Maynooth.
The website is accessible at **french.ie and at ** scoilnet.ie/french . At present, it holds a total of 250 songs, games, listening activities and reading comprehensions which cover a wide range of interesting topics. All the material can be downloaded by teachers for classroom use.
"This new website will respond to the real needs of the learner in the modern world. This includes being able to participate in normal everyday transactions and interactions in the target language and, of course, being able to use modern technology to support this learning. It is just these kinds of demands that this portal website aims to answer," said the Minister.

A dossier of links to relevant, authentic sites is available and some interactive exercises have been included to enable students to work independently. Future plans for the site include an online forum and newsletter for teachers. The site is free of charge and available to all, teachers and students alike. It is user-friendly and colour-coded for ease of access.

"Information and Communications Technology (ICT) has the potential to be extraordinarily powerful in the field of education and this is an excellent example of how this new technology can be harnessed to further the interests of language acquisition. While this website deals exclusively with the teaching and learning of French, I hope and predict that it will serve as an example of excellence and become a model for similar projects promoting other languages," the Minister stated.

(l-r) French Ambassador, M. Frédéric Grasset, Camille Rantz and Minister for Education & Science, Mary Hanafin browsing www.french.ie following its recent launch.

**The links above are external to the Beech Hill College site.