Senior Lecturer Emerita, French
My teaching and research interests are closely connected. I am interested in theories of second language acquisition and teaching, but I am also mindful of the need to make the study of French interesting and relevant to students' lives. To this end, for example, I created and oversee a service learning class in which students teach French at several area elementary schools. My own research is never disassociated from its potential pedagogical implications. For example, based on my study on acquisition of stylistic variation by American learners of French, I co-authored an article on using film to introduce this crucial aspect of language use into the classroom. In a follow-up project, a colleague and I compared native speaker use of stylistic variants in French with their treatment in 22 popular first and second year French language textbooks, concluding with a number of strong recommendations for changes in pedagogical materials as commonly designed today. Our latest project focuses on native speaker attitudes towards stylistic variants used by native speakers versus learners of French, the results of which will serve as a basis for further pedagogical recommendations.
The College of Arts