A multilingual and multitarget multimedia device for a first approach to the French language

The radio broadcast

Radio is omnipresent on the African continent and a powerful tool: a wider public will be touched by le Talisman brisé than the usual students and in particular those who would not have chosen spontaneously the written version.

“Listen to the wind, that's the Sahara crying. She's waiting for a man of integrity to make her green again.”

A bilingual concept

The pleasure of listening to a captivating story in episodes makes the listener familiar with French, without his having the impression of learning. Identifying to the hero: the listener is following the adventures of Kwame, the gardener, who thinks in his mother tongue, which is also the listener’s. A fascinating track game: the listener can understand the story without having to master French, for he can read in Kwame’s mind and decipher with him the linguistical and dramatical traces in order to discover the truth.

Multimedia educational tools

For those who want to deepen their discovery of French, in addition to the serial, some educational tools are available on paper or through the internet and allow the listeners to work off-site, in autonomy or in class. Once motivated by the radio broadcast, the listener will then use the written tools to extend his knowledge.

Listen to the series 

View the demoversion of the website 

A coedition RFI - Hachette Livre International with the support of the International Organization of the Francophonie and the Institut français.

Production : Service "langue française", Radio France Internationale
Script : Pierre Lamoussa & Bruno Maurer
Music : Baco
Producers : Raphaël Cousseau & Nicole Nazem
Delegate producer for the English version : Daniel Brown

“Mission Europe” aims to help young Europeans become familiar with other European languages and cultures. The project is based on an original concept which enables listeners to follow a bilingual radio-drama with little to no effort. The listeners follow the story of a heroine who speaks in their native tongue, and must learn to get by in a foreign culture with another language.

“Mission Berlin”, “Misja Kraków” and “Mission Paris” are three series of 26 episodes of 5 minutes, three quests each set in a video game. The player must guide his avatar on dangerous missions in Gemany, France and Poland respectively, finding clues and winning points. In order to succeed, they must ask for help and unveil their enemies’ identities by learning communication skills appropriate to the country’s language and culture. The listeners follow the video game adventures from the point of view of the player and his avatar who speak the listeners’ mothertongue.

Executive producers: Lidwien van Dixhoorn, Sabine Hartert, Agnieszka Drewno - Concept: Lidwien van Dixhoorn, Katja Ingman - Story: Sebastien Bousquet, Marianne Caron - 0riginal music: Bertrand Taussac - Art direction: Jean Pierre Chevillard

Eva finds herself in the midst of a huge explosion in the “Gare de l’Est” in Paris. A wounded man gives her the first clue: a series of numbers. Eva finds a message on a piece of paper saying, “La statue domine le mort mais la fertilité est retrouvée.” Eva embarks on an adventure to solve the riddle. The gamer has to guide Eva through Paris, past its booksellers, via the painters of Montmartre to Père Lachaise cemetery. But our digital heroes have just one handicap: their life is in danger amid a foreign language and culture.

Executive producer: Lidwien van Dixhoorn - Script and guide: Katja Ingman - Producer: Jean Pierre Chevillard - Production manager: Anoushka Notaras

The Mission Europe website enable users to listen to the series on demand and download the language guide, to find online downloadable tools, activities, games and cultural information, providing first steps in the chosen language. For radio professionals: a re-broadcast service, while teachers can download ready-made class material.

www.missioneurope.eu

Mission Europe has been co-produced by Radio France Internationale, Deutsche Welle and Polskie Radio in collaboration with project partner Radiofabrik. Mission Europe is funded by the EU Commission's Socrates and Lingua 1 programmes.

"L’Affaire du coffret" is a bilingual radio and multimedia crime series intended for beginner and pre-intermediate levels.

In sixty four-minute episodes, L’Affaire du Coffret recounts a story which, in less dramatic form, could apply to any foreigner confronted with the words, sounds, and culture of French.

One morning, Lucas, a British journalist, wakes up in a hotel room with the mother of all headaches. He can’t remember a thing. Room service (who ordered that ?) brings him breakfast and a parcel containing 20,000 euros, a walkman with a minidisc and a note: « A bientôt, Nadia ». So, he must be in Paris, but : who’s this Nadia ? As if that weren’t enough, a police officer asks him to come to the station… Is he an accomplice or a victim of a crime?
Lucas decides to trust no-one and to carry out a private investigation : Rather a tall order for someone who has lost his memory and doesn’t speak French beyond "bonjour" and "au revoir".

L’Affaire du coffret is an extraordinary story based in ordinary French, offering listeners an aural paper-chase as they help Lucas achieve his mission. 

Executive producer: Lidwien van Dixhoorn - Concept: Lidwien van Dixhoorn, Katja Ingman - Story, script and guide: Katja Ingman - 0riginal music: Trio Toykeat - Producers: Anoushka Notaras, Jean-Pierre Chevillard

→ The serie "L'affaire du coffret" in English 

"Tout un roman" guides you through the building blocks of the French language, with dialogues from the works of its foremost authors. For intermediate and advanced levels.

In sixty seven-minute magazine programmes, we cover thirty authors. For each, programme one offers a glimpse of their life and work - while programme two moves on to a linguistic look at an extract.

The French-English and French-Spanish versions offer thirty twenty-minute editions. Here we go beyond the presentation and exploitation of a text, with supplementary dialogues showing how the same pieces of language can change meaning according to the situation.

The dialogues offered follow a linguistic progression – discursive and lexical – from the easiest texts to the most complex.

The chosen texts –  based on a classical approach to the best known authors – give the listener a vision of the richness of French and Francophone literature from the middle-ages to the 21^st century.

Executive production et adaptations: Geneviève Baraona, Anoushka Notaras - Script: Geneviève Baraona - 0riginal music: Sauveur Malia - Producer: Anoushka Notaras

Discover the meaning and linguistic features of thirty songs typical of French and Francophone musical production. For intermediate level.

"Le français ça vous chante ?" helps increase your knowledge and appreciation of French through music.

In this sixty-programme series, adapted into fifteen of our broadcast languages, RFI offers songs representing French music and production from the Second World War to today.

Two programmes are devoted to each song, with no difference in teaching level from one to the next. The first programme leads the listener to a sense of the song’s lyrical significance. The second zooms in on points of grammar, structure and pronunciation.

Executive producer: Chantal de Grandpré - Script: Sylvie Poisson-Quinton, Chantal de Grandpré - 0riginal music: Victor Stoïchita - Adaptations: Lidwien van Dixhoorn - Producer: Sophie Maley

A French business soap-opera. For beginner and pre-intermediate levels.

Learn the language at the heart of a French company. "Comment vont les affaires?" offers a practical education in the basic language needed to do business in France.

The course offers a logical progression through key themes over three series of twenty programmes. As with all RFI series, "Comment vont les affaires?" is adapted into RFI’s fifteen broadcast languages.

The originality of "Comment vont les affaires?" comes as you learn alongside the intern himself. There are no regular explanations of each situation in your native language. Instead you will join him in the context of French business, learning as he does about the workings of French and French companies.

If you’d like to take things further, "Comment vont les affaires?" is accompanied by a learning pack of the same name, comprising manual, CD and cassettes and published by editions Hachette FLE in association with the Chambre de Commerce et d’Industrie de Paris.

Executive producer: Lidwien van Dixhoorn - Script: Sophie Corbeau, Chantal Dubois, Michel Danilo, Jean Luc Penfornis - 0riginal music: Jean-Pierre Chevillard - Producer: Jean Claude Djian

→ The serie "Comment vont les affaires ?" in English