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What is Talk IT?

Talk IT is a European co-funded project supported by the European Commission’s Leonardo da Vinci programme. It aims to improve foreign language skills and cultural awareness of people involved in the tourism, hospitality and leisure sector to better welcome visitors from overseas. The countries involved include Sweden, Romania, Poland, Austria, Spain and the UK. See www.talk-it.se for further information about the whole project.

We in the UK have developed flexible material to meet, greet and inform French visitors. The material concentrates on the language that would be useful to the tourism, hospitality and leisure sector with a special focus on B&Bs. Unlike other language courses this perspective is for people using French in the UK to communicate with French speaking visitors rather than as a person visiting a French speaking country. Learners that may find it difficult to access language classes can work in their own time at their own pace online.

Talk IT is designed to give people working in the tourism or hospitality industry greater confidence in speaking a foreign language and provide an improved quality of customer service. The benefits mean that organisations will be able to:

Provide a warm welcome to visitors
Meet, greet and inform visitors in French
Be able to help with a range of requests
Promote facilities, services and the local area
Increase their business
Show that we in the UK are willing to make an effort with languages
Have better intercultural awareness
Have greater personal satisfaction in communicating effectively and a greater sense of achievement

The course includes:

The Alphabet & pronunciation
French and British cultures
Numbers, dates, telling the time
Greetings and making small talk
Facilities, local amenities, leisure activities
Directions
Food & drink
Role plays
Listening exercises

As a suggestion to get you back into French if you haven't tried for a while have a go at a n exercise - great for making you realise you know more than you thought! (This is called 'Nice French Test' at the top of this page.) Then just for fun test your knowledge on France and French with a quiz.

Help & Advice on Language Learning
This section will help if you are a little unsure of how to go about motivating yourself or if you've had negative experiences with language learning in the past or if you just want some tips.

French and British cultures helps you to understand how cultural differences can lead to misunderstandings. This section is a general summary of French and British history, etiquette, habits and customs.

And finally the lessons takes you into the practical learning part of the course with vocabulary and exercises that can be done online.

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The material has been developed and written by Cecile Besrest-Butler and Maddi Lester. With support from Andrew Shorey who spread the word and Mick Carey who made it possible.