St. Olaf’s FLAC program featured in French journal
The most recent issue of the French Review features an article that highlights the Foreign Languages Across the Curriculum program at St. Olaf College.
“Not an Extravagance: Reflections on Using French Texts to Teach French History,” written by Associate Professor of French Jolene Barjasteh and Associate Professor of History Dolores Peters, focuses on their long-standing interdisciplinary collaboration that integrates an optional French component with a survey of modern France offered in the History Department.
The article argues that by emphasizing the interpretation of texts rather than language acquisition, the FLAC program offers students authentic opportunities to create meaning through interdisciplinary learning, thereby supporting core learning objectives of the liberal arts. While offering advice on the selection of appropriate original-language text and sharing examples of learning aids, the authors contend that the strategies and best practices they’ve developed can be adapted to various institutional and curricular contexts to ensure a relevant future for French — and all language study — within the existing framework of higher education.
The French Review is an official journal of the American Association of Teachers of French and has the largest circulation of any scholarly journal of French and Francophone studies in the world.