Bouquins and Bewilderment

There are a lot of things to love about the French language and culture(s). High on my list is the word "bouquin" and its verb partner "bouquiner." These are essentially slang terms for "book" and "to read." If language is a reflection of culture, what does it say that a group of people have created a colloquial word for reading? French francs used to have great writers are artists on them before they changed to the euro (maybe paper euros still have them...I should have looked more closely.) The French have an institution devoted to honoring and recognizing the works of writers and thinkers (the Académie Française). Studies have shown that until recently reading was favored over T.V. watching as a typical leisure activity.

I am a bibliophile myself. I have long loved the smell of musty books, probably thanks to my maternal grandmother. I happily inherited classic volumes from her and my mother. I acquired more at a bookstore in Wisconsin that was housed in a renovated silo. I could lose myself for hours in a library or bookstore. I acquire books WAY faster than I can read them, as the piles on my bedside table can attest.

On my recent trip to France I savored time in bookstores on four different occasions.

On the first I stocked up on a few new children's books for my daughter. Luckily she loves them and has added the words "monstre," "aie," "loup" and "peur" to her vocabulary thanks to them. Although I was focused mostly on the stories themselves when picking them out, I was slightly disappointed by the homogeneity of the illustrations. Most were flat renderings with a limited color palette. It made me appreciate the creativity of classics like The Very Hungry Caterpillar which retains brush strokes and allows one color to shine through the one laid on top.

On the second, in Aix-en-Provence, I wanted to find some books on migritude. Having read about this literary movement in sources like The New York Times and having already read a few books by Fatou Diome, one of its principal participants, I wanted to find more. When I discovered a huge bookstore in the center of Aix, a city known for its diverse student population and a region that attracts immigrants and visitors from much of the francophone world, I thought it would be a good starting point. Unfortunately, the clerk working that day had never heard of "migritude" or any associated authors. She located three of Diome's books but couldn't be of more help than that.

This experience has made me wonder about the state of francophone literature within France and outside it.  My French parents, sister and her siblings have studied few, if any, francophone works and in some cases have never heard about authors from the francophone canon. Are the drivers of francophone studies largely located outside of France? One possible indicator can be found in the advisory boards of academic journals. Most of the biggest Names work in the U.S. or U.K. Hmmm...

Third, the classification system used at a bookstore on rue Mouffetard in Paris was enlightening. In glancing at the shelves I noticed a section of "Anglophone" literature, one devoted to "La Caraïbe et Afrique" and a third with literature from the Maghreb and Mashreq (although I can't remember the exact title of this section). To my surprise the Caribbean/African section contained books by Maya Angelou and Dave Eggers. Nina Bouraoui and Leïla Sebbar, however, were integrated in the stacks of "French" authors. When I asked the woman working she thought about it for a moment then explained it had more to do with the authors' subject matter and sensibilities than their origins. This fascinates me. In my mind, no contemporary author better embodies American experiences than Angelou. I don't recall a strong "Caribbean" or "African" current in her works. Eggers' body of work explores a range of subjects and genres. For example, Zeitoun is a nonfiction book that looks at a Syrian-American impacted by Hurricane Katrina. What is the What is a novel following a Sudanese refugee. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius is a memoir about his life. Other topics include world travel, Saudi Arabia and working in corporate America. His "Caribbean" or "African" sensibilities elude me. Yet I use the word "enlightening" because the organization of this one bookstore perfectly illustrates something many of us take for granted: the whole world is organized according to individual choices. Those choices are based on an infinite number of reasons. They are all subjective at some level. There is no single way in which to categorize a group of something which means there is also no "right" way to group it either.

I suspect the bookstore's owners who trying to transcend geo-political boundaries when they decided to group books by topic or "sensibility." How do you neatly categorize a group of authors like Bouraoui, or Sebbar, who have parents of different origins? Or Marguerite Duras and Albert Camus whose parents were of the same origin (French) but who grew up far from metropolitan France in what were French colonies (Indochina and Algeria, respectively)? Better yet, how do you justify grouping all four together as this bookstore did? How many different categories would you have to create in order to give each group its own unique identity? And yet, if everything in the whole store were simply shelved according to author's last name, how much unnecessary scanning would customers have to do?

Fourth, the bookstore located at the Institut du monde arabe. For a francophoniste it was heaven. 

There was no need to ask where the "francophone" authors were located. Virtually everything was francophone. There was no disappointment to see only the most canonical works that I already own to be found. There were numerous new works by my favorite authors. I could have spent a fortune and hours there. In the end I bought only one book by Maïssa Bey, a short play she recently wrote, Tu vois c'que j'veux dire?, because I think it will be short, pithy, and accessible to my upper level students.

These four experiences illustrate the trajectory my own reading has taken. I began college with a cursory (at best) understanding of francophone literature and no interest in children's literature. Now I specialize in francophone literature, interrogate the ways it is classified, and seek ways to make it accessible for my students. Oh, to have a leveled library for them, where they would have a wealth of options at the right level the foster their language competence. Now I am a bit of a children's book snob. Clearly taste, like language choice, is reflective of experience.

Aller/Retour: Reflections on France 8 Years Later

I spent just over two weeks in France with a diverse group from my university. By diverse I mean an art history professor, her husband, six art history students, a retired music professor who went for fun, a 60+ year old French student, the biological mother of an art history student who also joined just for fun, and a non-traditional student originally from Guatemala who recently graduated and wanted to add more international travel to her resume. We spent the bulk of our time in Paris, bien sûr, and a few days in Aix-en-Provence and Marseille.

View from the Marseille train station. 

It had been eight years since my last trip to France. The last time I was there I was still a student working on my PhD. I was the co-chaperone to a group of high school students. We used a private bus and French guide to lead us from Paris through Normandie and Bretagne. The students stayed with French families in Rennes and I stayed with my own near Nantes.

There were many similarities between the two trips. My favorite foods haven't changed (chèvre, coconut anything, hazelnut anything, croissants aux amandes, rillettes, galettes, Muscadet, etc) and my favorite sites/activities are about the same ("owning" a table at a café for an hour or so of reading and writing, any kind of castle, the Musée d'Orsay, rue Mouffetard, boulevard St. Michel).

A lot of things were different, though. There were places I re-visited and re-appreciated.

There were things I did, tried or saw for the first time. Like this sculpture in Place Sarte/Beauvoir near St. Germain des Près in Paris.

Like this example of street art off of rue Mouffetard in Paris

Or Canal St. Martin in eastern Paris, a neighborhood gaining in popularity thanks to its reputation as a hipster enclave

And this Algerian pastry shop in the same neighborhood

I'd been to Marseille before and loved its bright, urban vibe, but I hadn't ventured to the islands just off its coast including Château d'If. My first visit there cultivated my love of Maghrébin pastries but this trip I shared them with the students and made it part of a lesson on France's diversity.

I'd long wanted to visit the Institut du monde arabe and finally made it on my last day. This is a close up of the windows along its facade. The building's architecture and position perfectly reflect its purpose and contents.

I noticed several social changes as well. For example:

• many, many people were exercising in Paris, notably by running laps in the Luxembourg garden. No one looked strangely at them as they did me when I went running in France last time
• very few people smoked
• portion sizes in restaurants were huge and several restaurants offered (unsolicited!) to give out doggie bags
• most of the students did not speak French and yet they had no trouble with shopkeepers, waiters, or customer service agents who were more than willing, and in some case eager, to speak English
• throughout Paris there were many more locals with Asian roots than I'd ever noticed before
• Maghrébins were more mainstream than ever before as evidenced in the popularity of pâtisseries, restaurants, and boutiques managed by them and located in heavily touristed areas. My favorite off of boulevard St. Michel in Paris had been renovated since my last pilgrimage. In the past I was usually the only one there. This time there were six people (French, judging from their accents) ahead of me and three more behind. The daughter of one of my students lives just down the street and attests to its popularity with the locals
• despite of, or perhaps because of, the Front National swept the elections while I was there, undoubtedly changing the makeup of the Assemblée nationale and France's representation in the EU

Summer Reading Summary 1: Ideas for Effectively Using Film in the Foreign Language Classroom

I've been catching up on a lot of professional reading this summer. I've gotten lots and lots of great ideas for my teaching and scholarship, but I've struggled with the best way to capture those ideas so I am able and likely to put them to use. That's where this blog comes in. In the series "Summer Reading Summary" I'll be sharing the most helpful ideas and resources for my purposes. Since the blog searchable it will make it easier for me to find and use. Hopefully it will offer readers some main points to inspire further research of their own. 


Here are some good ideas from two articles in Foreign Language Annals:

• "Using Film in the L2 Classroom: A Graduate Course in Film Pedagogy" by Jessica L. Sturm Vol 45 No 2 Summer 2012 pgs 246-259
• "Effects of Narrative Script Advance Organizer Strategies Used to Introduce Video in the Foreign Language Classroom" by Philips D. Ambard and Linda K. Ambard Vol 45 No 2 Summer 2012 pgs 203-228

Key passages and ideas:

Sturm:

• article explains a graduate level course on using film to strengthen communicative language teaching, emphasizing meaning and authentic interaction, not perfection, 
• ideas for course texts: Using Authentic Video in the Language Classroom (Sherman 2003) and Dictionnaire de didactique du française étragnère et seconde (Cuq 2003), Pegrum 2008 "Film, culture and identity: Critical intercultural literacies for the language classroom" in Language and Intercultural Communication, "Got film? Is it a readily accessible window to the target language and culture for your students?" (Bueno 2009 in FLA), "A Sequential model for video viewing in the foreign language curriculum" (Swaffar and Vlatten 1997 in Modern Language Journal)
• the goals of the course were to engage with film on a more critical level and to build from smaller segments (excerpts or TV shows) to feature length films
• the course emphasized student input, personalizing the material, and collaboration
• units: remakes, medium (adapting written texts for film), how to read an image, subtitles/dubbing, ancillary materials, sound (imagine the sound, play only the sound without the image, imagine what is happening), trailers, excerpts and commercials, pre and post watching activities, short films/TV, feature length films
• film ideas: Le ballon rouge (Lamorisse 1956), Hors de prix (Salvadori 2006), French films and their American remakes like 3 men and a baby, Le dîner de cons, etc, Paris je t'aime (2006), La Môme (Duhan 2007), Indigènes (Bouchareb 2006), Glory (Zwick 1989), Amélie (Jeunet 2001), L'Auberge espagnole (Klapische 2002)

Ambard and Ambard:

• research has found the use of video is more effective if it's introduced via effective advance organizer (AO) strategies. 
• Examples: using transcription and viewing guides, watch short, key scenes and ask students to write short summaries of them before viewing the whole film
• use technology to discuss essential facts, character roles, genre, emotional tones, visual context
• using AO strategies helps learners understand what they'll get out of the lesson

Metacognitive Skills: Building on techniques for teaching grammar

Another recent article in Foreign Language Annals echoes, at least for me, my last post on teaching grammar in the target language. David R. Thompson argues we should promote metacognitive skills in language classrooms ("Promoting Metacognitive Skills in Intermediate Spanish: Report of a Classroom Research Project" Vol 45 No 3 Fall 2012 pgs 447-462). Meaning we should encourage our students to self-monitor and reflect on their learning. As a result they will be more aware of their learning and feel a greater sense of ownership over it.

A couple of highlights:

• "Learning should include opportunities for students to talk explicitly about methods of problem-solving and connect strategy selection and evaluation to particular scenarios" (449). My thought: doing this will give students tools and should empower them.
• "Most educational psychologists agree that metacognitive skills should be embedded in disciplinary content instruction and that instructors should include cues for strategy selection and evaluation in assignments" (449, citing Pintrich 2002, Svinicki 1999, Veenman et all 2006). My thought: it makes sense to share with students techniques that are likely to be more effective for them, perhaps things that worked for us, the instructors, when we were first learning the concepts. At the same time I wonder if this reflection, which will inevitably be done in the students' first language, will be a mental detour away from the important concepts at hand. Furthermore, I wonder if this self-monitoring and reflection replicates L1 learning. It seems to me no, it doesn't...

Examples of metacognitive activities:

• posttest reflection exercises
• talking explicitly about study strategies during classtime
• anonymous surveys getting students to think about their learning strategies

Why this made me think of my last post:

Although assigning students self-monitoring assignments may lead them in the direction of L1 use and away from the central concept being taught, I think any activity that builds awareness and confidence, is a good one. Learning grammar in a second language can be very intimidating to students who don't know the formal grammar rules of their first language. Metacognitive skills can boost confidence.

Teaching Grammar in the Target Language

As I catch up with some long overdue reading I was surprised and inspired by two articles on teaching grammar, both from Foreign Language Annals. Both articles strongly support teaching grammar in the target language (TL).

In "The Effect of Target Language and Code-Switching on the Grammatical Performance and Perceptions of Elementary-Level College French Students" by Brinson, Herron, Cole and Haight (vol 45, no. 1 spring 2012) I was a bit smug when I read their introduction noting the mixed opinions of the benefits of exclusive target language use when teaching grammar. I've noticed how much my students struggle with grammar, even in their first language, and wondered if language professors are really doing them a service by teaching them something so challenging in the target language. Brinson et al cite the work of V. Cook who refuses to reject first language use and M. Swain and S. Lapkin who argue that the use of their first language (L1) facilitates interactions, fosters collaboration, and is more efficient.

Brinson et al conducted a study to determine whether test scores were different between target language  situations and target language + L1 situations. Their results were striking. While students expressed a preference for being taught in the combination TL + L1 environment, they recognized the value of a TL only explanation. Brinson et al noted that the test scores were significantly higher among the TL only group. They cite the work of P. Lightbrown to hypothesize that the reason may be that teaching grammar in the TL maintains the cohesion of both form and function; when form is separated from function learning is typically short-term only.

The authors offer the following, extremely helpful suggestions, for using the TL:

• "openly discuss the benefits of a TL-only approach with the students" (86)
• coach them and reassure them that they DO have the skills to recognize the patterns is the are attentive during instruction in the TL
• be sure to emphasize learning to do in the TL instead of just learning about the TL
• you can provide supplementary information in the L1 but make it available OUTSIDE of class and prior to class meetings

The first year French text I've most recently used, Chez Nous, has an online workbook with multimedia tutorials included with each chapter. I regularly assign them so students get extra grammar support without taking class time to talk about the language rather than using the language. A colleague in German goes a step further and creates an audio explanation of all the grammar using Audacity, which he uploads to the course management site. At the end of the audio is a dictée integrating the grammar which is the students' homework. To do the homework they must listen to the explanation. I need to do more to stress the importance of these outside of class time resources. 

Gladys Jean and Daphnée Simard's article reaches similar conclusions. ("Grammar Teaching and Learning in L2: Necessary, but Boring" FLA vol 44. no. 3 fall 2011). Their inspiring suggestions include:

• "choose an approach that does more than teach grammar...grammar instruction should work as a catalyst for language acquisition" (480). Meaning: form + meaning = effective learning
• sell your approach and the benefits of learning grammar to your students
• start by showing the form in authentic discourse so they both see it and hear it. Then give them a communicative task using the form
• stress the idea that grammar rules are not laws. There are many, many exceptions. Rather than a grammar "rule" explain that it is merely a description of how the language works to try and make sense of a pattern or irregularities and help other people understand it. 
• make sure grammar presentations are focused and contextualized

Imagination, Hard Work and Learning Another Language

In this piece in The Atlantic, Ta-Nehisi Coates poignantly explains the rewards and challenges of learning another language, in this case French in the Alps. I recommend reading the full piece, but two key, pithy ideas:

1. If you get the chance to study abroad to practice or learn another language, do it in a place where it feels like your native language is the 4th language spoken there. (Don't make it easy to rely on your first languages.)
2. There are lots of advertisements for language learning opportunities, many of which mimic the persuasive techniques of weight loss ads, suggesting there's a secret way you can do it quickly, effectively and painlessly. (To effectively learn a language, lose weight, or do anything challenging, really, you have to invest considerable time and be willing to make a lot of mistakes. It's as much about the process as it is the end result. Since language is always evolving, the end result is always a moving target anyway. This isn't a bad thing. The more you work, the more you invest of yourself, the more you succeed.)

Doctors, titles, and identity politics

My husband received a thoughtful gift-a subscription to a magazine called The Week. It is an aggregate of sorts that gives a concise overview of the week's major events as covered by numerous news sources from around the world, liberal and conservative alike. In the May 10, 2013 edition it gave a snapshot of an opinion piece by Charles C.W. Cooke from The National Review, "Too many doctors in the house." In it, Cooke argues that only people with a medical degree should use the title "doctor" in everyday contexts. The Week's editors give three examples from Cooke's original piece: Dr. Jill Biden, wife of Vice President Joe Biden, Dr. Cornel West, a philosopher at Princeton, and Dr. Maya Angelou, the recipient of 30 honorary degrees.* The piece focuses on the first, Dr. Biden, whose doctorate is in educational leadership.

I am struck by a couple of things. First, he says he doesn't use MA after his name, even though he earned one, because no one else is really interested in his "non-vocational education." That's his choice. Dr. Biden ostensibly feels that on some level it is important to use her title to share her credentials, perhaps because it makes her expertise more credible.

Cooke's primary gripe about Dr. Biden is she consistently uses the title Dr. across multiple contexts, even those outside her professional scope. He thinks when she's outside her professional context she should use a different title, presumably Mrs. or Ms. My feeling is that as the wife of a prominent political figure who is himself often in the media and whose title is regularly cited, her name is regularly used in formal contexts where titles are frequently used. Perhaps the regular use of "Dr. Biden" reflects the formality of much of her life. I wouldn't want to be constantly referred to as Ms. Bartlett (or worse Mrs. Bartlett) when I had worked hard to achieve the degree I had. Medical doctors are allowed and encouraged to be addressed as Dr. across numerous contexts. Why is it different for PhD holders and the other variants of doctoral degrees?

Second, he writes it is by chance that those who have doctorates can call themselves doctors. He provides the origins of the word. I wonder when the term "physician" arose and why we don't refer to medical doctors as "Physician Angelou" instead of Dr. Why is one group more deserving of the term than another?

Third, he quotes J. Frank Dobie who argues that the average PhD thesis is nothing but "a transference of bones from one graveyard to another" and adds he doesn't argue with that. Medical, scientific, social and cultural advances would not be where they currently are without the skills and insights discovered in seemingly useless PhD theses. I wonder why Cooke is so quick to paint all advanced degree work with the same negative brushstrokes.

Finally, I am most perplexed by the primary examples Cooke has chosen: a white woman (Dr. Biden), a black man (Dr. West), and a black woman (Dr. Angelou). It is likely each has had to surmount considerably more obstacles to earn their degrees than their white, male counterparts. There's a subtle suggestion that those with "real" degrees look like this man, Sir Raymond Firth (an ethnologist with a PhD)

There are numerous examples of other PhD holders who are men. For example: Bill Cosby, Ed.D in education; David Brin, PhD in physics; Jack Williamson, PhD in English; Brian May, PhD astrophysics. After doing a quick google search of each one it appears that Bill Cosby is most often discussed in conjunction with the title "Dr." Are men like him exempt from Cooke's contempt because they do not appear to use the title "Dr." to the widespread degree Dr. Biden and Dr. West do? It begs the question: whose choice is it, the person's or the source describing that person. For example, in this piece Bill Cosby is presented with his title. Does this violate Cooke's code?

I don't mean to suggest that Cooke has been deliberately sexist or racist in his opinion piece. I suspect the examples that came to his mind did so because there is a broader social issue at work that goes largely unnoticed much of the time. As a society, we tend not to question the credentials and marks of prestige of white men. We are much more likely to question those markers when they are possessed by minorities such as women and people of color. NPR did a story a week or two ago on a physician from a minority background whose approach to his patients has had to change because they initially perceive him as unqualified because of his race. He invests greater time in them than his white colleagues because he has to set himself apart and find a way to connect to them. This is but one example. My overall point is to raise awareness of the inadvertent assumptions we make about people's backgrounds. Let's remember that professors also look like these women, Emma Perry Carr (PhD in chemistry) and Chien-Shiung Wu (PhD in physics).

(For thought-provoking discussions of some of these same issues I highly recommend NPR's new blog on code switching.)

*For the record, I generally agree that whatever title a person chooses to adopt it should be grounded in an actively earned achievement. In the case of Maya Angelou, since she is the recipient of honorary degrees bestowed upon her for the contributions she's made to literature and society, not coursework completed, I am personally uncomfortable using the term Dr. with her. However, it's not up to me. It's up to her and the institutions who granted her those degrees. If I am ever lucky enough to meet her I will happily greet her by whatever title she prefers!

Images from Flickr The Commons which have no known copyright.