It is often observed that the French model of integration differs greatly from the U.S. idea of multiculturalism, in both theory and practice. When the term “multiculturalism” even comes up in France, it is without fail with negative undertones, referring…
While living in France a few years ago, I found this old agenda in a pile of post-flea-market trash. Not knowing exactly what I had found, I picked it up along with some other books someone deemed no longer relevant.…
The Public Domain Review just put together this collection of images published as postcards for the 1900 World’s Fair. This would be a great source for discussing the turn of the 19th century (civilization/culture/society/technology) or for practicing the imperfect and…
Patrick Weil, a research fellow at the CNRS and also a former professor of mine, has just published an essay entitled Etre français, les quatre piliers de la nationalité (Editions de l’Aube, January 2011). Although I haven’t yet had the…
Welcome to a new semester! I’m teaching a civilization class this spring and thought I’d share some of the ideas I’m using for course material. In this post I talked about using Gallica to find primary sources, and used the…
I was living in France in 1999-2000 when the millennium was all the rage. On the occasion of the turn of the new century (yes, a year early), I picked up a copy of a compilation CD called Les plus grandes…
Whether teaching a foreign language or using most students’ native tongue to discuss texts or other cultural productions, inciting discussion can be a surprisingly difficult task. Successful group discussions require both planning and flexibility to accomplish the goals you set…
One difficult aspect of teaching grammar is the disjointed impression given by a series of grammar lessons: when going over the difference between the gerond and the infinitive, for example, we tend to give students a long series of sample…
Michel Fugain’s 1972 song “Une Belle Histoire” has become a classic ballad of summer vacation, travel, and youth. The musical style is pretty dated, but that only adds to the kitchy fun of the song. It also happens to use…
Using crossword puzzles in the classroom can run the risk of seeming too juvenile. I picked up a couple of crossword vocabulary books in Paris and admittedly, their target audience is probably around the age of ten or twelve, with cartoon…