The soc.culture.french newsgroup is very similar to the Quebec equivalent except that the postings relate to France. Students will enjoy having direct access to the issues being discussed and debated. Arguments about language use such as the relative value of standard French versus regional variants are common. Recently, there were a number of postings related to the use of the imparfait. Student projects could involve following the debate on a particular issue being discussed online then doing further offline research on the topic and finally posting students' own commentary all in French.
Students can even create their own issues to be debated or discussed online.
They might want to send a message to France asking for people to tell them what they know of or what their impressions are of Canada. This newsgroup is ideal as a means of contacting other immersion or French teachers, setting up keypals, penpals or exchanges. Many of the lists included here are specifically geared towards classroom use and therefore provide projects and themes that are already designed for online use by students. Lists are very similar to newsgroups in many ways, however, unlike newsgroups where postings are sent to sites, postings from mailing lists are sent directly to your email box provided you have subscribed to the particular list. To subscribe to a particular list you will need to know the address.