MOOC
This offering is fully in line with innovation, the renewal of teaching practices, and didactic reflection in higher education.
Oriental language contact kits
Accessible worldwide via the France Université Numérique (FUN), the contact kits offer beginners a few cultural reference points as well as an oral and written initiation centered around several tasks enabling initial contact in the language: introducing oneself, getting around, finding accommodation, eating, making a purchase...
The FUN platform is operated by the Groupement d'Intérêt Public (GIP) FUN-MOOC, co-financed by the Ministry of Higher Education, Research, and Innovation, and member establishments. It aims to federate the online course projects of French universities and schools to give them international visibility and enable them to disseminate knowledge to as many people as possible.
It currently offers its two million users a vast catalog of more than 500 courses with varied, topical themes designed by 133 partner establishments.
Since 2018, a fee-paying certificate recognized for 4 ECTS has been issued to students who successfully pass a written exam validating their acquisition of the entire program. The exam is proctored remotely in a slot defined by the student. This certificate is valid in all training courses at international level, particularly in LANSAD (language teaching for specialists in other disciplines).
Developing the offer
Inalco is committed to the production of around ten other MOOCs. Two new contact kits (Hebrew and Malagasy) were launched in March 2022, followed by the Turkish-language contact kit the following year, then in 2024 contact kits in Indonesian, Moorish and Mazatec with the support of the Inalco Foundation. Future MOOCs currently in production will enable learners to discover Burmese, and then Thai thanks to financial support from the Thai Embassy in France.
The extension of the Arabic MOOC to Moroccan, Tunisian, Lybian and Kuwaiti dialects is underway, with the collaboration of the UMIFRE of the French Research Center for the Arabian Peninsula (Kuwait) and the Institute for Research on Contemporary Maghreb (Tunis).
In 2023, the didactics MOOC "Décloisonner les langues : approches plurielles du français" joined the training offer proposed on the FUN platform.
In line with our commitment to the preservation and knowledge of indigenous languages and cultures, a series of "Indigenous Languages and Cultures" MOOCs is currently under development. Launched in March 2023, the MOOC for an introduction to the dongba script of the Naxi people of Yunnan (China) inaugurates this series, followed, in February 2025, by the MOOC for mazatec, the Amerindian language of Mexico.
In autumn 2023, Inalco launched its first disciplinary MOOC specializing in international economics. The course aims to explain the mechanisms of free trade and understand the globalized world we live in. A second edition is proposed for 2024. More information ICI.
MOOCs devoted to literary translation, African literatures and Armenian writing are currently under development.
An offer inseparable from initial and continuing training
Further on, the MOOC is inserted into initial training courses or redeployed in the form of SPOC (Small Private Online Course), in order to offer distance continuing education for a restricted audience, within the institute itself.