2016 FIS Grad Student Colloquium a Success

Submitted by Fis Assistant on

French and Italian students, faculty and staff turned out in great numbers to this year's Graduate Student Colloquium, hosted by Assistant Professor Maya Smith. Current and former graduate students Esther Le Grezause, Lise Lalonde and Federico Fabbri presented their experiences instructing French and Italian. Esther shared her techniques for teaching French pronunciation, stressing the importance of raising awareness of different accents and dialects used throughout the Francophone world. She also gave a tour of her website-in-progress, where she hopes to provide useful tools for understanding pronunciation. Lise presented the difficulties and rewards of teaching French to students from various multilingual backgrounds, arguing that learning a language transcends the study of grammar or pronunciation and is, in fact, political. Federico shared his portfolio of teaching first-year Italian, an extensive website of lesson plans, activities and exercises that he created and compiled for the 100-level. After the talks, the presenters mingled with the audience over refreshments.

Federico Fabbri presenting website
 

Federico Fabbri presenting his lesson plan for writing a "Tema" (essay) in the first year.

Esther Le Grezause presenting

Esther Le Grezause introducing her talk on Techniques for Teaching French Pronunciation.

Lise Lalonde interacting with audience

Lise Lalonde responding to a question from the audience following her presentation.

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