The theme of this year's conference was empowerment, transformation and social justice.
Associate Professor Sarah Glasco and Lecturer Patti Burns presented this weekend in Raleigh at the annual conference for the Foreign Language Association of North Carolina (FLANC). This year’s theme was empowerment, transformation and social justice, and the conference highlighted the importance of language learning as a means to understanding cultural situations and multiple perspectives.
Glasco discussed the infusion of social justice perspectives in beginning French courses via Francophone products, practices and perspectives from literature, music, film, etc. and how this approach transforms traditional language and culture courses and thus how students perceive language learning. Students in such courses can become not just passive advocates, but active agents for social change.
Burns discussed cultural exploratory projects wherein students can use authentic French texts, websites and online platforms to interact with native speakers and thus better understand the lived reality of the language and culture they study. She offered practical scaffolding techniques for writing and speaking assignments to help build linguistic accuracy along the way, as well as best practices for error correction.