You’ll Love the Updates to our Spanish & French Textbooks

I adopted T'es branché? back in 2015, when its first edition still mentioned MP3 players, and characters in the video series texted each other on flip phones. To this day, I have my weathered, green-covered copy of Level 2 on my bookshelf at home, with an early page dog-eared so I could easily find a reading about a Canadian rapper named Samian.

But it's not 2015 anymore, and T'es branché—along with its Spanish counterpart, ¡Qué chévere!—has evolved with the times. Let's find out why you'll love the newest edition of these stellar French and Spanish textbooks.

Streamlined scope and sequence

I know the scope and sequence of the T'es branché? first and second editions like the back of my hand, and still I can't tell you what's in Chapter 10 of any level. Why? Because getting through ten chapters in a school year was never possible for me—even pre-COVID.

That's one of the things I love about the new editions of T'es branché? and ¡Qué chévere! Each features a slimmed-down, eight-chapter layout per level (six in T’es branché? level 4). This means you'll never have to feel rushed or lament not making it to your favorite unit at the back of the book (looking at you, Paris unit from Level 1!)

Despite the streamlined profile, grammar is still effectively sheltered so that students can focus on mastering the underlying rule or structure before tackling the wide range of exceptions or irregulars that may relate. 

After using six competitor products, I can assure you: T'es branché? and ¡Qué chévere! have the best approach to teaching grammar as a concept in context, and that remains as true as ever in their third editions.

Enhanced teacher support

World language teachers are a fun—but often lonely—bunch. Sometimes we're our own one-person team or department, and content-specific professional development is rarely a building priority for us.

That's why the third editions of ¡Qué chévere! and T'es branche? include purposefully designed teacher tools, including embedded resources to support teachers interested in proficiency-based instruction.

Also new is an awesome tool called Keys to Proficiency. This tool helps teachers provide concrete suggestions to students based on their current proficiency level, aiming to improve their output and advance them to the next level.

Additionally, our Annotated Teacher's Edition (ATE) offers a new Teaching Moves section with ideas for unit-opener discussions, student reflections and pre-writing, sharing unit learning goals, and planning with backward design.

Our new online platform, the Clear Learning Center, offers lesson planning templates, auto-scored assignments, and tools for tracking each student's language proficiency.

Immersive cultural content

The dialogue videos I loved from the first and second editions of T'es branché? have been bolstered by the addition of My Language Town™. This video series features native speakers modeling real-world language use aligned with the central question of each unit. Students will hear new vocabulary being naturally integrated into conversations on familiar topics, boosting their listening comprehension skills and further committing vocabulary to memory. Use both the dialogue videos and the new My Language Town series for a more immersive audiovisual experience.

If you're a fan of iCulture, you still get access to this extensive library of target-language resources, including continuously updated articles, news reports, songs, and videos. And now, in the 3rd edition, iCulture lives in Destinations Library, which includes not just iCulture but also My Language Town videos, eReaders, Performance Activities, and ClearTalk! You get to choose from a wealth of resources to keep students engaged on topics they enjoy while keeping input comprehensible and clear.

ClearTalk^TM

As a language teacher, you never dreamed of a future with flying cars—you dreamed of a tool like ClearTalk™. You know that timely, effective feedback is essential for boosting speaking skills, but getting to every student every day can be challenging. That's why we've leveraged our extensive background in artificial intelligence to create ClearTalk™, an AI-powered speaking tool offering students valuable speaking practice and immediate, personalized feedback.

This tool boosts student engagement and helps to improve their speaking ability, all while reducing your workload and providing essential feedback. There's a lot to love about the new editions of ¡Qué chévere! and T'es branché?, but this is my favorite, hands down.

Still great: listening activities, ancillaries, & more!

While there's much to celebrate in the new editions of ¡Qué chévere! and T'es branché?, some of their most beloved features haven't gone anywhere. Both curricula still feature their impressive libraries of listening activities, ancillary resources (including print-and-go communicative activities and IPAs), eReaders, AP-aligned activities, and more.

It's time to upgrade

Look, my first and second editions of T'es branché? will sit on my shelf until they've turned to dust—that's how much I love them. But I can't deny that the updated cultural readings—including shout-outs to current singers and recent films—vocabulary sets, and incredible tools like ClearTalk make the newest editions of ¡Qué chévere! and T'es branché? hard to beat.

If you're thinking it may be time for an upgrade, then it's time to check out the third edition of ¡Qué chévere! and T'es branché?

Find out more about each book series, and request access to digitally review all four levels.