French Pod 101 – Developing Reading Skills

As Frenchpod 101 focuses on communication skills (listening and speaking mainly), reading is not the priority. Therefore, you will not find any text to read or reading questions to answer on French Pod 101.

Everything that is said in French in the audio lesson can be found in the pdf document called “lesson transcript”

French Pod 101 Dialogue 1

You can read this document while listening to the audio to discover how words are written and get familiar with French spelling. For example, when they explain the grammar, everything that is said in French is also transcribed in French. You can see the correct written form for everything studied in the lesson.

You can also read this document after you have listened to the audio and then compare what you understood reading with what you understood listening. It is a good exercise to confront these two different understandings since they may result in a better comprehension of the lesson.

You can also use the line-by-line transcript to review a previous dialogue only by reading it. It is an opportunity to see if your reading skills are as good as your listening skills.

Reading skills can only be improved by practicing reading, and there are a lot of materials available on the Internet such as articles or news. Frenchpod101 made the choice to focus on oral communication and not written communication. If you visit France, you will be able to read signs, menus or every basic message if you studied the lessons well, meaning the audio lesson but also the grammar and the vocabulary.

I think it is a pity that Frenchpod101 do not offer some reading exercises, but this position can probably be justified by the fact that there are a lot of external tools to help the learner practice reading without any tutor or help. It can also be explained by the fact that they offer PDF documents to the learner so everyone can practice reading skill on its own.

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