French Lecturer Masters Web Language

by Aviva Luria At times she may find it difficult to believe, but Simone Monnier Clay has become a Web page designer. A lecturer in French and the coordinator of the second-year language program, Monnier Clay approached the staff of the Arbor early in Fall quarter to discuss creating a Web site. "I thought it would be great if people on this campus — and on other campuses — could see what the second-year program was about," she says. A Web site would provide resources — such as photographs and a history timeline — to her students, and make the program available for discussion and comparison among other French instructors. "In the French department, we are rather proud of the language program we have developed," Monnier Clay says.

When she asked the Arbor staff for help, she didn't realize they would show her how to create the site herself.

photograph of French instructor Simone Monnier Clay

"I told them, 'Really, I don't want to program anything.' Because you have this blockage about technology. It's frightening when you haven't handled it much," she says. But Monnier Clay overcame her resistance and found she enjoyed learning. "They are so patient, so helpful," she says of the Arbor staff. "As you start working on one thing it leads to another... You get excited and you want to do more and more. There is no end to the possibilities with technology."

Monnier Clay was the first client trained by the Arbor to create her own Web site. She learned HTML (Hypertext Mark-up Language), the programming language commonly used for Web page construction. She also learned how to scan photographs, saving them in a format that allows them to be displayed on the Web. Photographs depicting French art, culture, and attractions, organized on her Web site by subject and geographical region, now supplement her French courses' online syllabi.

"I see technology as a supplement to traditional teaching methods," Monnier Clay says. Like many instructors, Monnier Clay has been exploring various instructional technologies. She already uses automated class lists — electronic mailing lists that automatically update subscribers according to current class enrollment — which she says have been "a great success. They have allowed students to contact me freely whenever they have questions about assignments, about exams, and especially when they have grammatical questions or need syntactic clarifications." She finds the lists particularly useful when she's forgotten to mention something in class, or when a grammatical error turns up in a number of student essays. And they can also be fun. "I send jokes in French and little things like that."

"Pedagogically, a Web site is an important tool," Monnier Clay says. Students can access syllabi, cultural information, and a historical timeline on her Web site. Faculty from on and off campus can familiarize themselves with the French Department's program, its curriculum and teaching methodology. "It is difficult, if not impossible, to find out about the full language programs developed on any other campus," she says. "Personally, I feel that there's a lack of such resources on the Web."

For Monnier Clay, incorporating technology in her courses is useful for more than teaching students French. "It teaches them technology in an indirect way because, in fact, they are learning French." Hoping to focus more time on her Web project this quarter, and encouraged by the grant she received last year to install a French spell checker in the language lab, Monnier Clay plans to explore other funding options and technology resources. Recently she applied for a grant to develop daily class presentations and activities for the second year French program. "I would like to make this material available on my Web site and hope that this will trigger comments from other faculty. I believe that such exchanges can be beneficial to everyone who teaches and would enhance any program," she says.

"Ten years ago I never thought I would be able to learn so much about computers," Monnier Clay says. "It was just a word processing machine that was a little more convenient than a typewriter. And now it has become this magnificent treasure-box."

Resources:

Monnier Clay's Web site:: http://trc2.ucdavis.edu/french/default.html