lundi 23 février 2009

Lone Star College-CyFair announces summer French courses

Lone Star College-CyFair will offer four levels of college French this summer. For the summer 1 term, students can take FREN 1411: Beginning French 1 & FREN 2311: Intermediate French 1. In summer 2, students may enroll in FREN 1412: Beginning French 2 & FREN 2312: Intermediate French 2. All students with previous French experience must request placement assistance at http://cyfair.lonestar.edu/frenchplacement. For an informational flyer on courses, times, and dates in *.pdf, click here.

Chapter News

The award-winning Houston Chapter is proud to announce its new slate of officers! David Timms will continue to serve as secretary, Gerri Manlove will remain treasurer, and Rolande Leguillon will continue as historian. Our new president is Georges Detiveaux (Lone Star College-CyFair), our vice president is Roya McArthur (Cy-Woods High School), and our new NFC Administrator is Ann Clogan (Strake Jesuit College Preparatory). The entire chapter thanks outgoing president Wendy Kirkle for her wonderful service and wishes her the best! Merci mille fois, Wendy!

AATF-Houston held a brief (albeit standing room only!) fall 2008 meeting in conjunction with October's conference of the Texas Foreign Language Association in North Houston at the Hilton Greenspoint Hotel. The main topic of discussion, led by one of our new officers, Ann Clogan, was new practices and processes for students and teachers participating in the National French Contest (this information was also expanded upon at the spring meeting). Other issues presented were placement of students visiting from France through the ORCA program (administered by Claude Boutin), as well as preparations for the Texas French Symposium (presided over by Toby Freeman, who also reiterated the importance of participating in this great event at the spring meeting). You may recall that Toby Freeman is also the Houston area's latest exponent of French culture to be named a Chevalier de l'Ordre des Palmes Académiques. Félicitations, Toby!

Our spring meeting, held on January 31 in the charming ambiance of the Alliance française de Houston, opened with entertaining reports from two students who participated in the ORCA / Destination France scholarship exchange program. The spring meeting was also the occasion for us to welcome Marie Maurannes, Attachée culturelle adjointe du Consulat de Houston, who presented to the chapter several events planned to celebrate March's French Cultures Festival (le mois de la Francophonie). Mlle Maurannes, who has a background in FLE, was very well received at the meeting. Several members stayed afterwards to continue their animated discussions with her. President Georges Detiveaux presented plans for AATF-Houston's main contribution to the French Cultures Festival: a Saturday professional development event for high school and college teachers of French, history, and sociology. This teacher training workshop, entitled Teaching the Holocaust: la France, la Shoah, et la Deuxième Guerre Mondiale, will take place on March 7 at Lone Star College-CyFair (more here). This workshop will be led by Professor Eileen Angelini from Canisius College. Many other French Cultures Festival events are listed in a calendar online. President Georges Detiveaux and Secretary David Timms have been working diligently with the French Consulate since late fall on planning and promoting these exciting events!

Current activities in the Houston chapter include assisting the French Consulate with promoting events for the French Cultures Festival, planning for the awards ceremony for Houston winners of the National French Contest, as well as planning for March's professional development event.

Qui sommes-nous?

We are the Houston Chapter of the American Association of Teachers of French (AATF-Houston). The American Association of Teachers of French (AATF) was founded in 1927 and is the largest national association of French teachers in the world with nearly 10,000 members. Our members are French teachers at all levels and include approximately 3/4 secondary teachers and 1/4 post-secondary. We also have a growing number of French teachers in immersion settings and in the elementary grades. As a professional association, we seek to address the concerns of our members which include: promoting the study of languages in general and French in particular; facilitating the implementation of national and state standards in the classroom; improving the training of French teachers by encouraging minimum levels of language and cultural proficiency, and exposure to the French-speaking world through study abroad opportunities; creating opportunities and finding resources for practicing teachers to update their skills and improve their teaching; and, finally, encouraging the use of new technologies in the teaching of French and actively developing materials to support this use. Our regional representative to the national office is Dr. Jacqueline Thomas of Texas A&M University at Kingsville.

Officers of AATF-Houston

Roya Razavipour MCARTHUR, President
rrazavipour@gmail.com



Dore Sulistyo, Vice President
GUNDORE@sbcglobal.net



Johan P. Vergult, Grand Concours Director
Johan.Vergult@springbranchisd.com



Kathy KOCH, Secretary



Gerri MANLOVE, Treasurer
gembus@earthlink.net



Claude BOUTIN, Destination France Program Administrator
cgboutin@yahoo.com


Marci Pampe, Webmaster
mpampe@sbcglobal.net




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