Are We There Yet? Going the Distance with Virtual Learners of Intermediate French

The last thing I told my Intermediate French students in May, after a year and half of learning via Zoom, was that they should make a big effort to greet me if our paths happened to cross on campus in the fall. What a joyous occurrence when this really happened—me without a mask on Northrop Plaza, she with a mask having just exited a building. “Bonjour, Mme Belatèche, c’est moi!” We continued our conversation in French, exclaiming over the fact that we were now visible in 3-D. Unbelievably, the student told me that her Zoom experience last spring represented the best French course she had ever taken. This gives me pause, as I reconsider the communities of students that flourished during remote teaching. This article is inspired by my students of Intermediate French over three semesters in 2020 and 2021 who never gave up on their great journey of language learning, despite having to travel remotely.

I would like to analyze in depth the difference between taking courses on the intermediate level versus on the advanced level within a virtual setting (see my first article “Far from Remote: Zooming with Advanced Students of French at the U,” published by the MN-AATF in Les Reflets de l’Étoile du Nord, and republished by the Language Center). Just this month, a former student of mine remarked via email that he really appreciated the communities of French learners described in my first article: “L'article est bien écrit et je l’ai trouvé intéressant. En particulier, j’ai été surpris de la créativité et l'engagement de vos étudiants.” One of my Intermediate French students wrote in fact that online learning need not be second best if students were willing to do their part. This comment was written on the end-of-semester self-evaluation: “I had a good time in this class and although it was online, I don’t think I have ever been as engaged in class before.” As I repeatedly told my students, Zoom silence was always worse than “live” silence, or as another student wrote at the close of the semester, “I am not a fan of awkward silences so I hope to aid in avoiding those!” I was astonished that a student could still be exclaiming over anything at the close of a third semester of remote learning!

When comparing teaching remotely in advanced versus intermediate levels of French, there are at least three key questions that come to mind. I will answer each of the following three questions in this article, with the hopes that the sequel is not inferior to the original, as is so often the case:

1. Is it harder to teach remotely when students are less advanced in their linguistic capabilities as learners of a foreign language?

2. Is teaching Intermediate French using Zoom more fun than teaching Advanced French?

a. If so, what kinds of activities make it more fun?

b. If not, why is it hard to inspire students to do their best at this level in the virtual environment?

3. Are students on the university level engaged during virtual learning if they are not committed to continuing into the advanced levels? 

Question #1:

Answering the first question is easy because it all depends on the student engagement I evoked in my introduction, rather than the level of language acquisition. It was not harder for me to teach Intermediate French because I had students who were constantly striving to be a part of a community of language learners. I was merely another part of this community, foregoing the traditional role of “sage on the stage” for “coach on the side.” (This became a mantra at many training sessions I attended on virtual learning, and I am unsure of its origins.) I found it incredibly touching that a student who had already been Zooming for a year wrote the following on their self-evaluation at the start of the semester in January of 2021, referencing the importance of teamwork, even though she was meeting her “coach” for the first time:

“French has always been hard for me. I tend to shy away when it’s my turn to speak or anything of the sort. I have a feeling this will be a great semester. My professor is amazing and is here for me. I will just continue to put forth my best effort. I will constantly remind myself that I am not alone, we are all learning here. Even if I don’t get something, I know that I have the support from my peers and professor. Last but not least, I will invest more time into learning French.”

During Zoom learning, students were more than willing to accept their limits, knowing that if they started off at a slower speed, they might be able to accelerate later on. They particularly enjoyed the activities of vocabulary building and phonetics. For the latter, they absolutely could not get enough of learning how to pronounce words correctly in French, and they thanked me for correcting them. My encounter this fall with the student on Northrop Plaza reminded me of how careful she had been during the spring of 2021 to correctly pronounce a particular spice in French: “gingembre” (ginger in English). In our live encounter outdoors this fall, we found ourselves repeatedly saying “gingembre”! This student had used this hard-to-pronounce vocabulary word when describing traditional dishes served in Guadeloupe. She had been inspired to present on this topic during our reading of Maryse Condé’s Le coeur à rire et à pleurer.

The chat feature during Zoom class for Intermediate French was also a great part of community building. I never imagined that students would write in French in the chat, especially if something puzzled them. However, the opposite was true. A case in point is a student who wanted to let me know that she was tired from having received her COVID-19 shot and that therefore she might not have as much engagement as usual during Zoom class. I had spent a few minutes visiting the website of the Académie française with students and let them know that French people liked to argue about the subtleties of gendered nouns. The case I cited was COVID-19 and whether it was “un virus” (masculine) ou “une maladie” (feminine). A student wrote the following in the chat, correctly indicating the gender assigned to COVID-19 by the Académie française:

“Bonjour Madame, j’ai reçu mon deuxième vaccin contre la COVID-19 aujourd'hui et je suis très malade. I will do my best to participate today.”

Académie Française banner

Photo credit: Académie Française

Intermediate French students even described tech problems in the chat:

--“Je suis désolée, mon wifi est lent et je ne peux pas activer ma vidéo.”

--“désolée, mon ordinateur a commencé une petite grève.”

This second one is especially admirable because “grève” means strike, which is a pretty sophisticated vocabulary in French.

The community of learners outside of class was easier to keep track of because students were placed in groups for communal homework assignments and these groups remained the same throughout the semester. However, I was astonished at how seriously my Intermediate French students took their time spent working with classmates in the break-out rooms, which were randomly assigned. A student wrote the following on their self-evaluation in the middle of a semester on Zoom:

“To make sure I use French in my breakout rooms, I will start using French right when we get in. This will help me to stay in the French mindset and limit me from switching back into English.”

Another student expressed a willingness to share and to make sure that all students felt valued during these small group exchanges: “I would almost always share my thoughts in the break-out rooms. I tried to create a respectful and inclusive space for everyone.” Reading this made me feel less anxious about visiting each break-out room for the same amount of time during each class session. My role as coach was never more apparent in Intermediate French than the one day over the course of three semesters that I had to leave class early to attend a professional workshop, also via Zoom. I made students the hosts for my two classes at the close of the sessions, and the next day they reported on how everyone not only finished the assigned activities, but also some students stayed after just to chat some more in French! This success story of a student-centered classroom is a “Tip of the Day” for Zoom teaching, published by the Language Center. My tip is aptly entitled “Briefly Removing the Instructor from the Student-Centered Classroom.” 

Question #2:

Answering the second question is the most fun because it was in fact humor that got my Intermediate French students through several semesters of Zooming with me. My thirteen students in the night section during the fall of 2020 had to deal with a two-hour journey twice a week, which included their friends from previous French courses for the most part. So great was their desire to maintain their community of French learners that they invited another friend who had taken the course over the summer to make a guest appearance. The intensity with which the students listened to me and to each other on Zoom was remarkable. Right before the usual pause of a few minutes in the middle of one night class, I made a reference to La guerre des étoiles (without citing the English translation of Star Wars), and more specifically Princess Leia. Right after the break, a student came back onto Zoom having arranged her hair exactly like that of Princess Leia!

Clip art image of Princess Leia

It was in fact unusual for me to go off on a tangent during Zoom class because one is so conscious of not taking too much time for each activity on Zoom, and yet there were always rare, funny moments like this one involving Princess Leia. My favorite, repeated moment was when students would say “Vous êtes mutée, Madame!” “Muter” in French means to be transferred elsewhere, like for a job. This was Zoom, after all, so I definitely felt like I had been transferred as concerns the modality of my teaching! Oddly enough, in the context of the ongoing pandemic, this verb also means “to mutate” as in a virus. For the record, the correct translation is “Vous êtes en sourdine,” but frankly, I think the wrong translation is a lot more fun!

The fun factor was also obvious whenever I would call on a student to play the role of professor and lead the other students in a discussion of a text or a film. Students especially enjoyed nominating one another for these roles, more so than during live class, so that no student would feel left out within the virtual atmosphere. How amusing when a student sent me a reminder in the chat that I needed to stop talking so that he could take over his designated role as professor of the day: “Puis-je être le professeur maintenant?” So, regarding activities, it was more important that they have humoristic elements above all else. Laughter led to more engagement, especially when students “got” my jokes in French, which were always based on contextual clues. The light touch was appreciated by another end-of-semester self-evaluation: “This course did an excellent job departing from a strict focus on vocabulary and sentence structure to incorporate more of a fluid and lively focus on actual conversation.” And yet, I think the vocabulary component was still there, as another student referenced feeling an “internal panic attack in fear that I was going to get called on and not understand what was being asked, but it definitely motivated me to pay more attention and look things up that I didn’t know or fully understand.” Again, regarding vocabulary building via Zoom, a student wrote, “I did my best to participate to the fullest extent and found a lot of fruit in remembering more French vocabulary.” I would add here that all the activities for Intermediate French involved visual cues, and that the quality of the PowerPoint presentations was key, especially as concerns fun images (including comic strips), which the students often remarked upon.

The biggest compliment I got during remote teaching for Intermediate French was the following on an end-of-semester self-evaluation: “I really liked that you provided so much room for participation.” The importance of the fun factor for language learning was never lost on students, as one wrote at the close of a semester of Intermediate French that “I had a lot of fun this semester!” and another wrote, again with unbridled enthusiasm, “Thank you for a fun semester online!!!” There was even a student who wanted to continue the fun of language learning by either inventing her own soliloquies or enlisting the help of her pet:

“I will practice speaking French outside of class by speaking French to my dog and sometimes when I talk to myself, I like to translate it into French (a little weird I know but it’s kind of fun and it helps me).”

In all my thirty plus years of teaching, I have never felt like my teaching mattered more. As I wrote in my first article on Zoom, students were over-prepared for our Zoom sessions, so part of the fun was knowing that no matter when I randomly called on them, they were ready! By the end of the semester, some students in Intermediate French actually wrote their self-evaluation in French: “Je parle français avec mes camarades de classe, je laisse des commentaires et j’envoie des courriels en français.” Who could ask for anything more?

Question #3:

The way I structured what I said in class changed completely through a method I named the three Rs: React, Reflect, Review. Rather than making lengthy introductory remarks on a text or a film, I would react to what students had written in their discussion posts or alternately on a google doc with comprehension questions. Both activities meant that students themselves were constantly reacting, reflecting, and reviewing with one another. My 3 Rs are in fact the biggest factor that contributed to students wanting to continue with learning French in their personal lives, even if they decided not to major or minor in French. This is my answer to question 3 asked at the start of my article. The intimacy created by Zoom class meant that French had gone way beyond the confines of the classroom. Often during class, I would see the same background that I saw when I FaceTimed my son, who attends college out of state. It was the same loft beds in a dorm and even occasionally a roommate working at a desk on the other side of the room. I had a student who really enjoyed reading for pleasure and during an office hour we could physically each show the stack of books we were currently reading. I, too, was surrounded by books in my study, which was never the case during live class. Sometimes students would just attend Zoom office hours to practice their French or discuss opportunities for travel to a Francophone country, whether through study abroad, job opportunities, or volunteer work (I found out all about WWOOFing). Discussions of music and films were more extensive than during a live semester and spilled over into office hours, as students had more time to explore both art forms on their own.

And what of listening skills? I initially balked at having to record an introductory video last fall when class was remote from the get-go. It was bad enough when I bored students on the first day telling them that I loved the city of Paris because my American mother and Algerian father met there. What would they think of me telling them this during a Zoom recording? I was by no mean a professional vlogger. It turns out that what students appreciated most was the “kitsch” factor in my introductory video, which they tried to reproduce in their own videos. I already discussed the fun factor with virtual backgrounds in my previous article, so will just add here that props were more appreciated in Intermediate French than in Advanced French because students’ vocabulary was more limited. Here I am on top of “la tour Eiffel” during my introductory video, making a big deal about my “lunettes de soleil” and my “eau gazeuse” (my favorite Perrier flavor of peach). I embraced the role of American tourist in a T-shirt, but with a special twist. I am also doing publicity for the French contest, “À Vous La Parole,” held in Coffman Union every spring, and sponsored by the MN-AATF. Many of my students had participated in this contest before their arrival at the U. My autobiographical PowerPoint included a reference to the French proverb on the T-shirt. I like to highlight French proverbs in every French course I teach, whether virtual or live. Students watched all the videos produced by their classmates and were quick to compliment those who had spoken for a greater length of time or discussed less mundane topics. The attention to detail in the listening activity was astounding, and students were just so happy to learn when classmates shared similar interests. Here are some sample comments left by students in my night section of Intermediate French last fall:

--“J'ai aussi fait du kayak cet été. C'est un bon sport pour la distance sociale. Où avez-vous fait du kayak?”

--"Tu as fait une très bonne vidéo! Tu as de la chance de pouvoir passer du temps au Québec avec tes grands-parents.”

--"Ta vidéo me plaît beaucoup. Ton français est très bon, et ton accent s’est très TRÈS amelioré! Je suis ravi de te revoir.”

--"J'aime votre vidéo. Je pense que la linguistique est très intéressante. J'ai lu Chomsky, qui d'autre recommandes-tu?”

--"J’aime les films d’amour aussi. J’ai regardé beaucoup de films sur Netflix, c’est un problème.”

--"J'aimerais habiter dans un appartement avec mes amis, mais c'est trop cher pour moi! C'était une bonne vidéo!”

--"Je me souviens de toi le semestre dernier quand nous étions dans la même classe de français! Je suis heureux de terminer le dernier niveau de français avec toi.”

 

 

Lydia Belateche at the top of the Eiffel tower.

https://eiffeltowerticket.org/information/eiffel-tower-levels/  Virtual background photo credit: Alexandre Nestora (SETE)

GIF of scroll reading "Le langage est la peinture de nos idees." (Language is the paint of or ideas.)uage is the

T-shirt logo design, Abbie Stiek, Lakeville High School South 

We were still serious about improving writing skills in Intermediate French as well, and the students grew to see this as a life-long skill, just like their speaking and listening skills. One student even went so far as to obtain a virtual tutor in French, so that he could practice his writing more. Another decided to start keeping a journal in French. The key to keeping the act of writing engaging during Zoom class was to create a community feel to the writing assignments. For example, a student volunteered to share her small writing sample that she had put through the free correction software “Le Bon Patron.” We all learned from this student’s mistakes and using correction software was no longer a lone wolf undertaking.

BonPatron.com banner

Photo credit: BonPatron.com

In closing, I would like to thank the Enriching Scholarship Committee at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, for inviting me to participate in a remote conference on May 3rd to May 5th, 2021. This event was hosted by the University of Michigan’s Teaching and Technology Collaborative (TeachTech). The first day of the conference via Zoom was devoted to community building during remote teaching. I was one of 5 keynote speakers who gave “lightening talks” addressing the topic of “Community Building and Developing Students’ Sense of Belonging.” This was when I first shared my three Rs. Again, I will let a student’s end-of-semester self-evaluation during remote learning say it all for me:

“My favorite days of the whole semester were the days where we had a prepared discussion. The discussion on vaccinations, as well as the discussion on French-Cajun heritage retention in Louisiana, were my favorite class periods. I think I learn the most when I spend time conversing for longer periods of time. It’s way more helpful than any Connect exercise [online workbook], or any PowerPoint could ever be. I love interacting entirely in French with my peers. In future classes, I’d love to do more of that!”

This last summary of the semester by a student of Intermediate French brings me full circle. Will students who learned Intermediate French via Zoom, want to continue their French studies once they have fulfilled the language requirement at the University of Minnesota? I would say that the Zoom experience did not deter students from continuing their French studies in person at a later date. Even the students taking the courses pass/fail (an option that they could switch to throughout the semester) still wanted to be part of a community of French learners once their time studying with me had ended. These students of Intermediate French were for the most part not upperclassmen. They knew you could not tune out in an Intermediate French course and that you just had to participate. Some students showed up on Zoom at work while wearing a mask, one was often at a sports facility for hockey practice, and some attended while outdoors. There were no empty, black boxes during Intermediate French class via Zoom, even at the close of each of the three semesters described here. This was very different from the upperclassmen in the advanced-level Zoom classes that took place at 9 a.m.!

GIF: "Zoom meeting" across the top. An image of an ungroomed dog with "without video" written above it, and an image of a well-groomed dog with "with video" written above it.

“Zoom Meetings: The funniest things people say and do”:

https://clickaway.com/blog/zoom-meetings/

These Intermediate French students also had a great sense at all times that their undertaking was not an easy one, as expressed in this “Thank a Teacher” note I received last spring: “I want to thank my professor for providing a structured, positive, conducive-to-learning environment and making a difficult subject easy to understand and exciting to learn.” This time the adjective “exciting” replaces the exclamation point because all journeys in language learning seem worthwhile in the company of others.

Lydia Belatèche is a Senior Lecturer of French in the Department of French and Italian (U of M, Twin Cities). This article was originally published in the Reflets de l'Etoile du Nord by the American Association of Teachers of French – Minnesota Chapter (AATF–MN) and is reprinted with permission.
 
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