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Modern Languages

Open Textbooks

Open Textbook Collections

  • Ebooks Directory
  • Searchable by keyword or topic.
  • HathiTrust
  • A collection of millions of titles digitized from libraries around the world, including many of the great philosophy texts.
  • Project Gutenberg
  • Project Gutenberg offers thousands of free ebooks. Books can be searched by title or by category.
  • Open Library searches a variety of sources for print and online books. Many ebooks are freely available for online reading or download.

Multimedia

  • YouTube
    • Search YouTube by keyterms and try filtering by channel or “Creative Commons” license (these videos are specifically labeled for reuse).
    • Tip: try searching YouTube by the title of your favorite journal publication to see if that journal also produces a YouTube channel.
  • TED Talks – Language / TED en Español / World Cultures
    • A collection of TED Talks and playlists on Language and related topics. Try searching the TED site for videos in various languages.
  • Videos through the CSUSM Library
    • Select “Books & More” tab and use these limits: Full Text Available Online and Audio Visual.
    • Library Media Reserves, including Video on Demand option (allows you to stream videos to CSUSM students). Keep in mind that you should leave at least 1 week of lead time for processing these requests.

 

Ebooks in the Library

The CSUSM University Library has an extensive collection of ebooks on a variety of topics. To find what’s available:
  • Go to the University Library homepage
  • Choose “Books and More”
  • Enter keywords and search
  • Use the limiters to narrow by “Full Text Online” to ensure all results can be accessed directly from your computer
  • Limit by “Books” to filter out journals and media
  • Filter by language

Journal Articles

Consider including journal articles as required or supplemental reading for your courses. Search through our Modern Languages database collection for articles. Just be sure to direct students to the article by permalink (or static URL) rather than posting the PDF directly in your Cougar Course. This will ensure two things: 1) that we are complying with copyright and publisher restrictions, and 2) that our journal usage is counted (this allows us to justify maintaining our subscriptions).

This page provides examples illustrating how to find permalinks in the Library’s databases.

Please contact your librarian if you are still unsure of how to find the permalink.

Open Courseware

    • MIT Open Courseware
      Offers an extensive series of online courses. Courses generally include lecture videos, assignments, exams, and more. Check the Topic: Humanities>Subtopic: Language to find either languages or “Teaching of English as a Second Language”.
    • MERLOT World Languages
      An educational resource for teaching and learning languages. Free materials for for many different languages.
    • OER Commons
      Searchable by discipline and academic level, this site provides a broad range of instructional materials, including texts, images, videos, primary sources and more.
    • BBC Languages
      Lessons, phrases, vocabulary, tests, and links to news sources in 40 languages. Site is no longer updated, but most resources are still very useful.
    • Lingu@net Worldwide
      Comprehensive resource for a wide range of languages. Search by language, proficiency level, and source language. Each language has a large number of resources.
    • LangMedia
      A collection of target language videos done by international students from the Five Colleges of Massachusetts in their home countries. Includes: Arabic, French, German, Spanish, Japanese, Greek, Italian, and Portuguese.
    • Mis Cositas
      Resources for Spanish, French, Chinese, and Italian. Includes: Videos, thematic curriculum units complete lesson plans, student worksheets and resources, downloadable materials collections with activities, manipulatives and mini-posters over 40 virtual illustrated picturebooks organized thematically, as well as a list of vetted links.
    • Language Lessons, via Open Culture list of free online courses
    • The University of Texas at Austin Linguistics Research Center provides a number of free resources related to Indo-European languages, a category that includes Latin and Greek as well as Spanish and English.

     

Other Open Educational Resources

  • YouTube Education
  • Foreign Language News and Newspapers
    Links to a number of free online newspapers for reading practice
  • Omniglot: Online Radio Stations
    Slow to load but this offers listening practice
  • Memrise
    Uses images and audio to help memorize vocabulary. Interactive site that saves individual progress.
  • The SMaLL Portal

Other CSUSM Library Resources

More information about finding and using library resources can be found on the Modern Languages Research Guide

 

Suggestions

Have a good idea for a free resource? Tell us about it! Email your subject specialist.