About Me
Me in France in 2010
My name is Mari Lindstrom and I am not a True Aggie. I am currently a super-duper senior at Utah State University. I am double majored in French Education and School Health, both with an emphasis in Secondary Education as well as a minor in linguistics. I claim to be trilingual through knowing English, French, and Latvian fluently. I have a university diploma in French as a Foreign Language from the University of Nantes. I served a LDS mission in the Baltic States from 2010-2012. I am a NFL member and I’m not talking about the football league.
My interests include: Running, reading, cooking, traveling, guitar playing, and ceramic making.
My First-Choice Discipline
I first began taking French in eighth grade. I had heard that many colleges required two years or more of foreign language study. At my junior high all of the Spanish teachers spoke very poorly, the German teacher scared the whole entire student body as well as teachers and that left French as the only possible language to take. I soon fell in love with the language and the culture. I continued taking French in High School and had the best French professor I have ever met. He was not only humorous, kind, and hip, he also knew French very well, spoke the target language with students, told stories of his own experiences, brought in French food, and taught grammar like it was nobody’s business. It was this high school French professor, Mr. Miller, who inspired me to become a secondary educator.
What is French to me? What is French to you?
French to me can be a way of life. French to me is a way to see the world through different eyes. I feel that one has to have an intimate experience with France, to be in France, to know what French is- the sound, the smells, the sights, the food (most definitely the food), the people, what is spoken and unspoken. To me French is also a beautiful form of communication. French is a personality, a way of life, it is so encompassing.
I feel that this clip from the film, “
Paris, Je t’aime,” describes these sentiments better than I can.
Literacy
Literacy is complicated. I wouldn’t say that I have a specific definition of literacy. It, like French, is something different to each person. To some it is being able to read, write, spell, listen, and/or speak. To others it is to be able to perform specific tasks (functional literacy). To others it is more of a cultural literacy where one knows idioms and other specifics about a particular culture. Also worth mentioning is critical literacy which defines literacy as being able to critically analyze and view information differently.
Literacy in French to me includes several facets. First and foremost is the simple reading, writing, spelling, listening to, and speaking in French. This bleeds into the hope that students become functionally literate in a French-speaking culture- that they are able to ask for directions, order food, etc. all in French, the target language for functional literacy. Beyond that, which in some ways I feel is more important and one of the overarching reasons languages are offered, is to create what I’ll call a cultural-critical literacy. Through studying a culture a student can learn to analyze and view not only French, but their own culture differently.
Teaching languages to adolescents provides them with a different point of view and helps them to be more tolerant of others. Taking French language classes truly opened up my eyes to the world around me. It helped me to get out of that teenage “spotlight” effect and realize that there is an entire world out there besides my life—a world that is big, beautiful, and diverse. I want to make language & culture learning an interest for my students. I want to help them discover passion and respect for cultures and people different from them. My French classes helped me improve my grades in other classes and created within me a desire to reach out and be more inclusive. I want to provide students with a safe learning environment where they can learn that we are all different and that it isn’t bad to be different.
I want to show students the world of possibilities that lie before them. I simply want to be the teacher that every high school student wishes they had; one who is intelligent, enthusiastic, caring, motivational, and unforgettable. Teachers really do make a difference and I want to be that one teacher that we all remember who made a difference in our lives. By teaching children well a legacy of future leaders who can help to stabilize our decaying world is created. Every day we are in need of more and more strong and talented people leading out in our community and I want to help shape our future’s leaders. My teaching philosophy is to teach French and to teach it well. I believe in allowing all children an equal opportunity to succeed in my classroom. I believe that this can be achieved by striving to attain as many forms of literacy in the classroom as possible.
Critical literacy through a cultural perspective: A different way to create change. Are French people wrong for going on strikes?
Me in France in 2010
My name is Mari Lindstrom and I am not a True Aggie. I am currently a super-duper senior at Utah State University. I am double majored in French Education and School Health, both with an emphasis in Secondary Education as well as a minor in linguistics. I claim to be trilingual through knowing English, French, and Latvian fluently. I have a university diploma in French as a Foreign Language from the University of Nantes. I served a LDS mission in the Baltic States from 2010-2012. I am a NFL member and I’m not talking about the football league.
My interests include: Running, reading, cooking, traveling, guitar playing, and ceramic making.
My First-Choice Discipline
I first began taking French in eighth grade. I had heard that many colleges required two years or more of foreign language study. At my junior high all of the Spanish teachers spoke very poorly, the German teacher scared the whole entire student body as well as teachers and that left French as the only possible language to take. I soon fell in love with the language and the culture. I continued taking French in High School and had the best French professor I have ever met. He was not only humorous, kind, and hip, he also knew French very well, spoke the target language with students, told stories of his own experiences, brought in French food, and taught grammar like it was nobody’s business. It was this high school French professor, Mr. Miller, who inspired me to become a secondary educator.
What is French to me? What is French to you?
French to me can be a way of life. French to me is a way to see the world through different eyes. I feel that one has to have an intimate experience with France, to be in France, to know what French is- the sound, the smells, the sights, the food (most definitely the food), the people, what is spoken and unspoken. To me French is also a beautiful form of communication. French is a personality, a way of life, it is so encompassing.
I feel that this clip from the film, “Paris, Je t’aime,” describes these sentiments better than I can.
Literacy
Literacy is complicated. I wouldn’t say that I have a specific definition of literacy. It, like French, is something different to each person. To some it is being able to read, write, spell, listen, and/or speak. To others it is to be able to perform specific tasks (functional literacy). To others it is more of a cultural literacy where one knows idioms and other specifics about a particular culture. Also worth mentioning is critical literacy which defines literacy as being able to critically analyze and view information differently.
Literacy in French to me includes several facets. First and foremost is the simple reading, writing, spelling, listening to, and speaking in French. This bleeds into the hope that students become functionally literate in a French-speaking culture- that they are able to ask for directions, order food, etc. all in French, the target language for functional literacy. Beyond that, which in some ways I feel is more important and one of the overarching reasons languages are offered, is to create what I’ll call a cultural-critical literacy. Through studying a culture a student can learn to analyze and view not only French, but their own culture differently.
Teaching languages to adolescents provides them with a different point of view and helps them to be more tolerant of others. Taking French language classes truly opened up my eyes to the world around me. It helped me to get out of that teenage “spotlight” effect and realize that there is an entire world out there besides my life—a world that is big, beautiful, and diverse. I want to make language & culture learning an interest for my students. I want to help them discover passion and respect for cultures and people different from them. My French classes helped me improve my grades in other classes and created within me a desire to reach out and be more inclusive. I want to provide students with a safe learning environment where they can learn that we are all different and that it isn’t bad to be different.
I want to show students the world of possibilities that lie before them. I simply want to be the teacher that every high school student wishes they had; one who is intelligent, enthusiastic, caring, motivational, and unforgettable. Teachers really do make a difference and I want to be that one teacher that we all remember who made a difference in our lives. By teaching children well a legacy of future leaders who can help to stabilize our decaying world is created. Every day we are in need of more and more strong and talented people leading out in our community and I want to help shape our future’s leaders. My teaching philosophy is to teach French and to teach it well. I believe in allowing all children an equal opportunity to succeed in my classroom. I believe that this can be achieved by striving to attain as many forms of literacy in the classroom as possible.
Critical literacy through a cultural perspective: A different way to create change. Are French people wrong for going on strikes?
I think my favorite part of this posting was when you said that French is empowering because it enables you to analyze your own culture from the viewpoint of another culture. I have spent quite a bit of time in South Africa, and I agree that the benefit of traveling and really getting to know another culture is that it broadens your mindset in ways that are difficult to articulate.
ReplyDeleteOn another note, when I used to share my photographs of South Africa to my students, that was one of their favorite things. They were so interested in that. I'm sure your photographs and artifacts from France will be profoundly interesting to your students too. For your "text set," you might consider scrapbooks of your travels as one text to put in your classroom.
Thanks for an articulate and engaging first posting. :)