Lecteurs typically teach multiple formats to various levels of students both in and outside the English department. Each class met only once a week for one hour and typically took the form of an extended speaking activity. Depending on the class, I incorporated American culture, recent news, and creative story-telling or debate ideas. My various teaching experiences are summarized here below.

Phonetics lab

First- and second-year students in the licence in English have a weekly phonetics lab to drill and improve pronunciation. Students worked at individual stations repeating recorded exercises; I listened to each student and provided feedback. I also helped rewrite the second-year lab book, available in the Materials section below.

Oral expression

All licence students have an hour of speaking practice with a lecteur each week. I taught a third-year class, many of whom obtained teaching assistantships in England the following year. In this class I chose to focus on types of public speaking; before the student strike began, we covered impromptu, expository, and persuasive speaking.

CAPES

Students preparing for the CAPES (Certificat d’aptitude au professorat de l’enseignement du second degré) have to pass rigorous written and oral exams at the national level in order to become English teachers in France. Typically they have already earned a licence in English and may have spent some time abroad as teaching assistants or au pairs. Our focus in their oral practice class was smooth, idiomatic, accent-free English appropriate for an academic setting. I team-taught this section with another lectrice, and together we brought in debates, word games, and pronunciation pitfalls.

Masters in FLE

Students in FLE (français langue étrangère) were in the UFR Lettres Modernes; their Masters prepared them to teach French as a foreign language at home or abroad. Because many of them hoped to teach in countries where French was not spoken, they needed to learn English as a vehicular language. We focused on both speaking and writing skills; to prompt speaking, I created a number of modules to share my American culture via Gullah, Thanksgiving, and American football, as well as some fun speaking activities like speed dating. We later did a professional writing unit in conjunction with the Virtual Cabinet project, described later on.

I team-taught this class with Prof. Annick Rivens, who structured it as a course in “self-learning:” half of our meetings were virtual. In addition to bi-weekly lectures with Prof. Rivens on self-learning and speaking practice with me, students spent the weeks in between in the CRL (Centre de ressources en langues), and online in our virtual learning environment, Moodle (similar to Oncourse). We used Moodle to share resources, submit written work, foster discussions, and build a class lexicon.

Intensive English for doctoral students

Another course outside of Angellier that I taught was for doctoral students in a variety of disciplines who wanted to brush up on their English for academic purposes such as conferencing. The class met for five hours a day, once a day for five weeks. Each session included activities in reading and listening comprehension along with writing and speaking practice, with an emphasis on academic topics and settings. For example, we did a unit on professional writing including résumés, cover letters, and abstracts in conjunction with academic speaking and interview skills.

Education Science – Distance Learning

Taking the concept of autoformation developed by Prof. Rivens, another lectrice and I led an English class for education majors via Moodle and VCab. The student strike interrupted the bulk of our regular semester meetings; however, students did have the opportunity to give one oral presentation, and completed the rest of the course virtually.

Language Resource Center (CRL)

In addition to my teaching responsibilities, I was also the English assistant in the CRL. For two hours a week, I was available for consultation by any student in English. Some dropped in for help on homework such as translation assignments; others came by simply to practice speaking with a native. I also put together plans for a professional writing workshop to coincide with the time of year when students were applying to study or work abroad, but the student strike prevented this from taking place.