Spring 2008 Professional Development for Teachers of French
Department of Foreign Languages & Literatures
University of North Texas
 
Date: Saturday, March 1, 2008
Time: 9:30 a.m. – 3:30 p.m.
Location: Language Building, University of North Texas
Cost: $40
 
This day of workshops will provide in-service training for teachers of French at all levels; however, the content, materials, and approaches will be geared toward K-12 teachers of French. Some sessions will be conducted in English, and others will be conducted in French.
 
This professional development forum is limited to 25 participants. Depending on the success of our first event, we may host more than one per year.
 
In order to reserve a place, please send an e-mail to Lawrence Williams at lawrence.williams@unt.edu. Payment must be received by Tuesday, February 26, 2008, or your spot will be given to the next person on the waiting list. If you will not be able to send your payment so that it is received by the deadline, please contact Lawrence Williams to hold your spot.
 
Please send payment in the form of a check (since we cannot accept cash) made payable to UNT Dept. of Foreign Lang. & Lit. to the address provided below. Be sure to include a note or a Post-It on the check indicating that the payment is for French Professional Development March 2008.
 
Lawrence Williams
University of North Texas
Department of Foreign Languages & Literatures
P.O. Box 311127
Denton, TX 76203-1127
 
 
Participants will receive a Certificate of Attendance indicating the date, place, and number of contact hours (which will be six). The Certificate of Attendance should be sufficient for requesting credit for professional development, such as Continuing Education Units, but all participants should check with their administrator or school district in order to know what kind of credit could be received.
 
Schedule
 
Opening remarks and overview of workshops
9:30 a.m. – 9:45 a.m.
Dr. Lawrence Williams
 
 
Foreign language teaching and learning: Current theories, trends, and practices
9:45 a.m. – 10:45 a.m.
Language Building, Room 109
Dr. Lawrence Williams
 
This session will provide an overview of current theories for teaching (i.e., pedagogy) and learning (i.e., language acquisition) foreign languages, with specific focus on French. A central component of the workshop will be a presentation of authenticity and authorship as the underlying principles of Communicative Language Teaching, an approach to foreign language teaching that is often misunderstood and misrepresented. During the second part of the workshop, the focus will extend to models of Communicative Competence that have been proposed over the past thirty years. The New London Group's pedagogical framework (published in 1996 in the Harvard Educational Review) based on multiliteracies will be presented—with specific examples—during the final part of this workshop.
 
 
Teaching French Women Writers
10:45 a.m. – 11:45 a.m.
Language Building, Room 109
Dr. Marijn S. Kaplan
 
Women writers are still to a large extent excluded from the canon we teach our students in literature classes. How then do we convince students not only that women have always made contributions to literature, but also that their voices need to be heard if we wish to present a complete picture of French literature? This session will present various methods of remedying the current situation, from teaching courses focused on women writers to including women writers in more general literature courses.
 
 
Lunch & French Conversation
11:45 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.
Faculty Lounge (Language Building, 4th Floor)
 
Participants can bring their own lunch or buy something at a nearby sandwich shop during the break. Those who bring their own lunch can store it in the refrigerator in the Faculty Lounge on the 4th floor of the Language Building. Everyone will meet in the Faculty Lounge on the 4th floor for conversation in French during lunch.
 
 
Education in France as Reflected on the Screen
1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.
Language Building, Room 109
Dr. Marie-Christine Koop, Chair of the Department of Foreign Languages & Literatures
 
This session will present examples of the way in which the educational system has been portrayed in selected recent French movies. This will enable us to discuss various topics such as the question of "laïcité" and the Muslim headscarf, problems encountered by teachers in underprivileged neighborhoods, and violence in schools. The presentation will be conducted in French and illustrated with film clips. Participants will receive a packet of documents with information to be used in their classes.
 
New Technologies for Learning and Teaching French
2:00 p.m. – 3:15 p.m.
Language Building, Room 106
Dr. Lawrence Williams & Mr. Rémi A. van Compernolle
 
This session will focus on using blogs and podcasts for teaching and learning French. The entire session will be a hands-on learning experience in a computer classroom. The blogging and podcasting sites that participants will learn how to use are free and very user-friendly. Participants will create a blog and a podcast by the end of the session.
 
3:15 p.m. – 3:30 p.m.
Closing remarks and distribution of Certificates of Attendance