August, 2016

Bonjour Andrea, Anna, Christine, Lynda, Martha, Melanie, Sheila,

      Bienvenue à une nouvelle présidente de la Région VI !!!
           Melanie Adams, AATF of Greater Kansas City
                   

What a wonderful time of the school year, so full of promise and new ideas! Those fresh faces look to you to help them learn to communicate in French, to be introduced to the Francophone world, and to respect people whose cultures are different from theirs but whose hopes and aspirations are the same. What could be more exciting???

While I no longer get to see those fresh faces coming in my classroom, it is such a pleasure to have recently received Anna's announcement to all the Greater St Louis members of the events coming up for the 2016-2017 year as well as Martha's most recent weekly email message to the Chicago/N IL Chapter and the link to the new webpage that Lynda created for the Downstate IL Chapter that includes an interactive blog: http://downstateilaatf.weebly.com.

Seeing all this great communicating, I want to be sure that you all have each other's contact info so that you can share your member messages with the other chapter presidents.  Here are the names and email addresses of all the presidents of our region:

Chicago/N IL                    Martha Behlow        mbehlow@geneva304.org
Downstate IL                    Lynda Lopez            blues@illinois.edu
Greater Kansas City         Melanie Adams        madams65chs@gmail.com  NEW PRESIDENT!
Greater St Louis               Anna Amelung         annaamelung51@gmail.com
Iowa                                 Sheila Conrad           sconrad@bettendorf.k12.ia.us
Minnesota                        Christine Lac            clac@carleton.edu
Wisconsin                        Andrea Behn            abehn@janesville.k12.wi.us

Advocacy
A real concern that AATF of WI president, Andrea Behn, has brought up is the very high number of openings for French teachers in her state this Fall.  It's a problem that has been creeping upward and that threatens our profession.  How can we address this very pressing need?  Your ideas?  I know that you are already helping fill positions by letting your members know about openings.  The Kansas City chapter has, in the past, organized an event to which members have invited students, both high school and college, who might be interested in becoming French teachers.  Three teachers at various points in their careers talk about teaching French as a career followed by lunch at a local Swiss restaurant.  Might this be a proactive response in other chapters as well?

Another approach could be to try to increase the pool from which those teacher candidates might come and at the same time strengthen college French programs, by encouraging high schoolers to study French in college.  The Chicago/N IL chapter devoted its 2015 Fall program to this topic and organized a video contest last Spring around this theme.  They also feature a local French college program in each of their 3x's a year newsletter and make an effort to ask local colleges to host their events for students.  They are thinking about organizing an Immersion Day for college students.

AATF of Iowa president, Sheila Conrad and I are planning a session "French is in their Future"at the Iowa World Languages Association conference in October and Anita Alkhas, professor at the U of WI-Milwaukee and Pascal Rollet, professor at Carthage College in Kenosha, WI and I will be doing a session with the same title at the November conference of the Wisconsin Association of Foreign Language Teachers in November.

Your thoughts... your ideas?  How can we meet this challenge to our profession?

Austin Convention
Being together in Austin was, as always, an enriching experience.  Our Opening Session speaker and author, Julien Suaudeau, was inspiring and it was significant that he, too is a French teacher and an AATF member. Having taught at the high school level these past couple years in Pennsylvania, he is starting this Fall at the college level.

One session that I attended was by Sarah Glasco, associate professor of French at Elon University, who showed how she used in her beginning French classroom the ideas that she found in Words and Actions:  Teaching World Language through the Lens of Social Justice, a book co-authored by Pam Wesely, an AATF of Iowa member and professor at the University of Iowa.  The book was published by ACTFL and Sarah had won it in a drawing at an ACTFL conference.  In Austin, she described how by including social justice in her course and including it in the course description, she was able to align her course with her school's mission and connect her class to the real world.  The main goal of using this approach is to break down stereotypes that lead to structural inequality and lack of diversity.

She showed how, adaptable to middle and high school, the focus on social justice can start with using a photo of a classroom in Mali and comparing it to the students' own classroom when starting off the year with a discussion of classroom vocabulary. As she introduced the negative and expressions such as "il y a", they were able to discus what is in an American classroom versus what is not in the classroom in Mali. In a unit on the family, she used Stromae and his music to lead to a discussion of what happened to his family and others in Rwanda. In a unit on Daily Routines, Places, and Fashions, she used the "Quai de Seine" vignette from the film "Paris, Je t'aime".  By the end of the session, it was clear that there were many opporotunities to teach Social Justice at the same time as French language!  The book can be found at https://www.actfl.org/publications/books-and-brochures/words-and-actions.

In terms of advocacy at the college level, a round table with AATF President, Catherine Daniélou, Alain-Philippe Durand, and Randa Duvick provided both information and inspiration. Catherine stressed that we need to expand the diversity of the courses taught and avoid the tendancy to hire "people like ourselves."  She also promoted the idea of offering at least one online course.  Alain-Philippe underlined the need to "jouer le jeu" by adopting and speaking the language of the administration.  By referring to the words that are in the schools strategic plan, for example, one can be seen as a team player and gain influence.  By examining the kind of news that appears on the college website, teachers can "package" their offerings so as to get wide circulation.  Having a data base of students who are currently taking French is essential. This will help identify students who have gotten an A or B in their first French class at your school and then show them how they can double major with French.  Randa focused on the importance of colleges reaching out to high schools to invite students and teachers to events on the campus and to send emails to high school administrators about the good work their graduates are doing at the college level.  Sending out college students to talk to high schoolers about the opportunities in college was another important strategy.  She also stressed the importance of collecting and disseminating students' stories for the department websites and also to offer to administrators who need to justify the study of French to their boards of directors.

Another interesting session was the one that Catherine Daniélou and Jayne Abrate presented on

One of the Hotel Bambou cottages

Martinique.  At our 2018 convention, we will again be on the Pointe du Bout where we'll get to stroll among the palm trees between the hotels on our way to sessions. Since our last convention on the Ile aux Fleurs, this area has grown from a primarily tourist area to a more residential neighborhood and so will offer us an authentic island experience with the capital Fort-de France and its market, shops, museums, and library designed by Gustave Eiffel, just across the bay and a ferry ride away. We are promised delicious banana jam, the chirping of frogs, and the fragrance of exotic flowers in the air.

The Bat Cave!
Unfortunately, I never saw in person the bats that famously emerge at dusk from under the Congress Avenue Bridge in Austin.  We arranged to have dinner at a hotel that promised in its advertising that we would be able to see from our table the flurry of black creatures as they rose into the sky.  Hélas... it was false advertising!  With much anticipation, we saw all the people lining up on the bridge...the other side of the bridge.  Soon we saw everyone leaving the bridge and realized that we had missed the nightly bat parade!


It was especially enjoyable to get together at the hotel after the banquet with some of our Region VI colleagues.  Christine and Martha were with us as well as Sue and Bill Hendrickson from St Louis, Rebecca Léal and Margot Steinhart from Chicago, Tammy Andrews from Iowa, and former WI president, Justin Frieman.


The 2017 Convention in Saint Louis
Coming up this next year, the 2017 convention will be in our own Region VI in Saint Louis, a city on the Mississippi with a rich French heritage.  I hope that you are all thinking about a session topic that you and perhaps a colleague will want to present.  What is that topic that that you look forward to teaching every year?  Is there an idea that you want to try this year in your classroom and that you're willing to share with others?  How do you promote French in your school?

                                          The deadline to propose a session is December 15.

Thank you for your willingness and your efforts to support and enrich the professional lives of your colleagues and to share with your fellow chapter presidents what you are doing.

                          Bonne Rentrée

P.S.  Feel free to point out items that have been left out and topics that you'd like to see discussed here.   Comments can be left here or sent to me by email.