Presenter Biography

My life has consisted of a series of migrations within an area of about a third of the U.S. Born on the Mississippi River in a small town in Illinois, at age three my family moved to Hammond, IN where I stayed until I was 18, then to Earlham College (IN), then to Buffalo, NY for twenty years, then to Columbus, OH for grad school and finally to Wooster, OH where I live presently. I began teaching at age 41, first at university level (adjunct), then later in public high school. I feel unattached to places, but have great attachment to family and the students I work with.

Location

Student Center Ballroom, Cleveland State University

Event Type

Paper

Start Date

15-4-2016 10:10 AM

End Date

15-4-2016 10:45 AM

Description

Being quite fed up with the disconnect between boring, abstract, and out of date so-called “units” in my French textbooks and real life, I decided to attempt to invent my own year-long “unit” based upon the ideas of migrants or immigrants who had come to France. From the beginning of the year I informed my students that everything we studied and explored throughout the year would help us create together and present to a small audience a final project in the spring in the form of a play, which they would write, me helping with the French. Since my student population lives in a largely isolated rural, white, and small-town environment, one of my motives for embarking on this project was to introduce my students to the idea of how diverse populations ( of different races, religions, and cultures), living in Europe’s large cities, cohabitate. With the summer Teacher Institute of Migration in Global Context fresh in my mind, I began the school year somewhat confused about how to get to the “play” idea. But events happening in real time in the world opened the door for us and gave direction, as well as providing the context for my teaching of the French language.

Comments

Key words: Migrants, France, diverse populations

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Apr 15th, 10:10 AM Apr 15th, 10:45 AM

French class Level 2:"Migrants in France" project

Student Center Ballroom, Cleveland State University

Being quite fed up with the disconnect between boring, abstract, and out of date so-called “units” in my French textbooks and real life, I decided to attempt to invent my own year-long “unit” based upon the ideas of migrants or immigrants who had come to France. From the beginning of the year I informed my students that everything we studied and explored throughout the year would help us create together and present to a small audience a final project in the spring in the form of a play, which they would write, me helping with the French. Since my student population lives in a largely isolated rural, white, and small-town environment, one of my motives for embarking on this project was to introduce my students to the idea of how diverse populations ( of different races, religions, and cultures), living in Europe’s large cities, cohabitate. With the summer Teacher Institute of Migration in Global Context fresh in my mind, I began the school year somewhat confused about how to get to the “play” idea. But events happening in real time in the world opened the door for us and gave direction, as well as providing the context for my teaching of the French language.