Target Language Use in Partner Work

Intermediate French students recently worked in pairs to rewrite Candide, either a single scene or a modernization. There were 3 groups. One group (the most seasoned-upper level Spanish students taking French) did ALL the preparation in French. They suggested a complex rewriting of the play that involved changing the setting to modern day Alabama, Candide to a woman and a lesbian, and the whole thing explored a kind of fallacy theory for a result that was philosophical, substantive and lengthy.

The other two groups handled the project in English with a lot of joking and screwing around thrown in. How to make those groups more like the first? How to incentivize speaking in the target language?

• The course syllabus notes the importance of staying in the TL during pair and group work, but I don't enforce it like I should. I need to circulate and redirect them to English early and often in the semester.
• The grading for such assignments never takes into account HOW the project was planned. I will add that to the guidelines and rubric and attach points to it. It's actually not a bad idea to make them more cognizant of the processes they use to learn anyway. 
• The directions always say both people need to take notes but inevitably only one does. I can build in points for the notes.
• I can build in a reflection that asks them to comment on their language use while preparing the final project. 
• The reflection could include a question about what words or expressions they heard their partner use that they can add to their own repertoire (thus learning from their peers, something to be celebrated)
• I could direct each group to a different location and record themselves, then ask them to listen to themselves and reflect on THAT.

Fall 2018 reading “assignments”

Well, I did set a goal to read more. At the moment I’m in various stages of commitment and completion of the following works:

• “El arbol” by Maria Luisa Bombal (“assigned” by an amazing Spanish student who recommended I read it to brush up on my Spanish. She said it’s her favorite short story so far. I confess my Spanish skills were so rusty I couldn’t understand more than a few words out of 20 so I got it in English and NOW I’ll go back to the Spanish. 
• Vivian Elizabeth Fauville by Julia Deck, a French psychological novel with unique narration. 
• Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan for a Stoughton community book group in Sept
• Between the World & Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates with a colleague at work to discuss in Sept
• Kitchens of the Great Midwest by J Ryan Stradak in audio book form with Kelly, Courtney & Jill in Oct

Book Review: Mon père, ce harki by Dalila Kerchouche

I picked this book up at the bookstore in the Institut du monde arabe in Paris in January 2018. I had vague notions about "harkis," but didn't really understand anything about this group of Algerians. Given my work on gender in Algeria between 1954 and present day I wanted to round out my understanding.

I found this definition of harki (masc) and harkette (fem): quelqu'un qui soutenait les Français pendant la guerre d'indépendance. Kerchouche explains this is "une quête harkéologique" for her. Like many, she wants to understand why her Algerian parents seemed to side with the French and how their lives in France unfolded the way they did. She follows their route when they left Algeria and were forced to move from camp to camp.

The writing is powerful. Kerchouche's style is pithy but accessible and sometimes poetic. So many of her observations resonated with my background knowledge on the Algerian war of independence, civil war, and how Algerians have fared in France. Although I should have been, I was not prepared for the brutality her family and other Algerians faced. I had to put the book aside several times as the U.S. media was flooded with horrific stories of young children being separated from their families at the U.S. border. I had the luxury of tuning out these tragedies, unlike those who endured and continue to endure them.

Some of the more poetic passages:

• "Chez nous, l'ascenseur social a grillé les étages...Jolie vitrine de l'intégration. En apparence, oui." (27)
• "On est sortis des camps mais on est restés derrière la grille."(28)
• "' On m'a volé mon enfance', m'a dit un jour ma grande soeur Fatima. 'Et moi, mon passé,' lui-ai-je répondu."(33)
• Kerchouche visits near a camp where her parents lived a throng of women recognize her and surround her. "Clouée sur place, je me laisse emporter par cette spirale humaine. [...]Je ne pensais pas qu'il y avait tant d'amour en enfer."(128)
• "Sur la porte verte d'un garage, un tag hurle 'harkis en colère' dans les champs silencieux." (131)
• "l'avion ralentit, mon coeur s'accelère." (208)

Some of the recurring themes and resonant ideas:

• être entre deux (neither Algerian nor French)
• loving and hating Algeria
• loving and hating France
• silence
• forced enduring poverty (garnishing wages, withholding checks, rich supervisors demanding offerings from impoverished families)
• attacking masculinity by shaming, beating or killing men in front of their families
• the replication of colonial Algeria in the camps in France, largely due to the pied noirs who worked there
• lots of non-French words. Ex: un gourbi, la mechta, un djebel, un oued
• the corruption, manipulation and hypocrisy of the FLN
• the importance of and education but how much of a struggle it was to get one
• effectively being imprisoned in the camps as if they were war criminals and not the allies that they were, often they are run like "microdictature" (pg 139)
• like Haiti "une vie de soumission et d'éternel colonisé. Résignées, anesthésiées aussi par un fatalisme ancestral qui les empêche de se révolter..." these families face nothing but misery (pg 145)
• women suffer more than anyone being trapped in the camps, but they pass that on to their daughters too by policing their attire, limiting their access to school and encouraging them to marry young (148)'
• "le chef de camps domine les harkis qui... dominent leurs épouses, méres qui dominent les filles. Et les enfants les plus âgés frappent les plus jeunes. Chacun et le bouc émissaire d'un autre."(176)
• is being a harki being a traitor to Algeria?
• "le peuple algérien, enlisé dans la lutte contre l'islamisme depuis 10 ans, a-t-il 'pardonné' aux harkis?"(206)
• fear of Islamist militants in Algeria
• in fact in many families one person worked for the FLN and other worked for the French, hedging their bets and trying to keep their families as secure as possible (pg 221)
• le FLN cont de nouveaux colons (stealing independence and the country's wealth, preventing its true independence) (222)
• contrary to the "mission civilisatrice" the French did very little to improve Algeria (228-229)
• for the Islamists religion is a pretext, an excuse to steal, rape, pillage, etc. And "tout le monde les connaît. Ce sont des jeunes du douar, attirés par l'argent facile."(241)
• just like during the war of indep, under the Islamists/civil war people live in fear of being coerced, tortured, massacred, etc.  (242)
• sometimes harkis carried out torture and other violence against other Algerians (252-253)
• if her family had stayed in Algeria she would likely be illiterate, impoverished, and living in terror. Despite what her family went through she has a better life today thanks to them. (270)
• "Oui, je suis une fille de harkis. J'écris ce mot avec un grand H. Comme Honneur."(277)

Overall, this book was an excellent complement to my prior knowledge about Algeria. It was eloquently written, thought-provoking and moving. 

Travel Photography Leads to Teaching Recognition

The professional organization I belong to, ACTFL (American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages) has a SIG (special interest group) devoted to culture. This summer they had a contest seeking 3 photos taken during study abroad programs in the 2017 or 2018 calendar year. The submission had to include a 300-350 word synopsis of:

• What is happening in the photos? 
• What did you learn from the photo? 
• How do you plan to transform the cultural moments into your teaching? 
• Do you plan to use / share the photos in your class? How so? 

I submitted three from our trip in January and won first place! The prize is a check for $100. The submission and photos will be featured in their fall newsletter. I'm still mulling over what to do with the money, but it will be for a resource related to teaching culture.




This German propaganda poster from WWII is on display at the Caen World War II memorial in Caen, in Normandy, France. The figure in the center is an African man with exaggerated features in keeping with racially offensive caricatures. The design of the poster shows the Germans wanted to justify the war by suggesting France was populated by racially inferior people. This is in keeping with common knowledge about Nazi ideology, but the French themselves had a poor track record when it came to treating minorities like Jews and people of color. The stereotypes in the poster are reminiscent of French posters from the same time period.

This poster offers an easy starting point to discuss WWII, Nazism and the occupation. Most students will think they already know the Nazis promoted a version of racial purity and the stereotype of an African in the center confirms that. Once that prior knowledge is activated, a deeper, bolder discussion can take place where they examine French-produced propaganda.

I plan to use the photo in my classes, even beginning ones, in discussions about colonialism, diversity, Normandy, and WWII.







These photos are from the Cité des sciences et de l'industrie in Paris. The display was part of an interactive exhibit that used fairytales to teach science to children. Here, a good and a bad witch illustrate bacteria. The first photo shows a young, blond, curvy, scantily clad witch to describe healthy bacteria. The second shows a hideous witch to explain bad bacteria. Although this section of the museum is oriented towards kids, the imagery is sexualized and reinforces harmful stereotypes about gender and appearance. Many American companies have been criticized for using imagery like this. The photos show the French are vulnerable to the same stereotypes.






I have already used these photos in class to talk about the origin of stereotypes and their use in fairytales. We analyzed the specific elements in these photos. I asked students to tell me what cultural values they noticed. Then students wrote their own modernized, healthier fairytales.

Possible images for ACTFL 2018 READ presentation from France January 2018

Plaque about WWII on an elementary school near our Airbnb 

Door to the kitchen of a burger joint

in the Caen WWII Memorial museum

from the Jewish History museum

Place de la Bastille

in the Caen WWII Memorial, accompanies the image above

In the Caen WWII memorial, accompanies photo above

at the Quai Branly Museum in Paris, accompanies photo above.

This museum was recently in the news because many of its artifacts were "stolen" from developing countries, usually as a function of colonialism.

at the Louvre, accompanies sculpture above

at the Louvre, accompanies sculpture above

under the Arc de Triomphe

street sign in Paris, near the Louvre

at the Pantheon

at the Institut du monde arabe, accompanies photo above

Graffiti on an advertisement in the metro

Study Abroad Informed Teaching

Since I've been to France numerous times and have tons of photos of the most famous "rides" in the Disney version of the country, during my most recent trip (Jan 2018) with students I was determined to take meaningful photos. The two main criteria for being "meaningful" were 1) they captured an unusual visual detail and 2) they illustrate an important nuance of French culture.

Here are some key examples.

An ordinary bike rack at an unusual angle at the south entrance of the Jardin de Luxembourg.

A plaque commemorating a French soldier who died during WWII. He died in this spot. There are hundreds of plaques like this throughout the city and they are posted where real people died. It makes the history more meaningful when you realize someone died in the exact spot you are in.

Photos like this helped students relax a little in their foreign surroundings. We also talked a bit about the poses, the materials used, and why they were designed the way they were.

This advertisement will be perfect this fall in FREN 103. I love how the French have made "vegetable" into a verb to promote healthy eating. What does it say about French culture if huge posters like this are prominently displayed in the metro?

Louis XIV was known as the Roi Soleil and spread this imagery throughout Versailles.

The spiral staircase at the Arc de Triomphe. 

A chandelier at the Grand Trianon at Versailles.

                       

The Madeleine Church in Paris. The photo on the left shows a wedding there during the German Occupation in the 1940s. The guests are giving a Nazi salute. I took the photo on the right 74 years later.

A light fixture in Notre Dame, photo taken from below which gives it a haunted, ethereal quality.

Making faces at the Arc de Triomphe.

The steps at the Grand Trianon. 

                               

The ceiling of the Panthéon.

The floor of the Panthéon.

A wall at the Grande Mosquée de Paris. 

                                                  A door to the Grande Mosquée de Paris. 

Literary Awards

In my upper level survey of literature class this semester we studied excerpts from a wide range of French literature like lais, fables, poems, plays, short stories, and novels.

To wrap up the course the last day I asked students to think of a name for a new literary prize awarded by our class (ex: le PLUR, le Prix littéraire de l'Université de Rockford) and then sub-categories.

Here are some of the best examples the students came up with and their own nominees (without consulting their notes or books):

• Prix de la Société Malheureuse (Ourika wins for slavery, 2nd place goes to L'Amant for its depiction of statutory rape, Le Père Goriot for the arrivisme, Candide for the violence women endure)

 

• Prix de Tristesse (in the "love" category-Le Père Goriot, in the death category Huis Clos, in the happiness category [??] "Lettre à M. de Coulanges" by Madame de Sévigné)
• Prix "I" (the most improbable-Les hommes invisibles, the most innovative-L'Amant, the most immoral-Le Père Goriot)
• Prix Survie (in the impossible category-L'Amant, in the resilence category Cunégonde in Candide, in the problematic category Ourika)

We then voted and debated different nominees. It was a fun, collaborative, effective way to sum up everything we've worked on this semester.