Two of our faculty members have been recently featured in LAS News for their ongoing teaching and outreach initiatives.
Professor Aurore Mroz, founder of the Cercle Francophone aims to develop and maintain French English bilingualism and biliteracy in Francophone and Francophile children in the Champaign-Urbana community by offering, free of charge, series of two-hour-long sessions of fun pedagogical activities in French designed for children of 3-11 years every Saturday morning in the Champaign public library. This initiative is carried out jointly with Florence Mathieu, a teacher from Yankee Ridge Elementary School in Urbana, and multiple graduate students volunteering for the project. Starting from Fall 2025, it will be integrated into FRIT’s course offerings through our upcoming 'French in the Community' course. For further information, see: A growing success in French | College of Liberal Arts & Sciences at Illinois.
Professor Amy Clay is writing an open access (OA) textbook for the FR 103 and FR 104 Intermediate French courses. Her initiative is sponsored by the University Library that, through grant funding from the Illinois State Library and the provost’s office, is helping professors develop such textbooks that students can use free of charge. Textbooks are a financial burden students don’t necessarily consider when they think about going back to school, and her initiative helps alleviate these costs for students aiming at more advanced levels of French language proficiency. The 7 thematic units of 20-25 pages each, including figures, images, and examples designed for each course will focus on developing literacy and intercultural competence in French classes. Unlike commercial textbooks that are organized around vocabulary lists and grammatical accuracy, the OA textbook will focus on teaching through authentic texts that ask students to meaningfully engage with a wide-variety of cultural perspectives and textual genres (e.g., poetry, prose, advertisements, and social media posts). https://las.illinois.edu/news/2024-12-04/illinois-faculty-members-writing-free-online-textbooks.
Félicitations aux Professeures Clay et Mroz!