Since last year, the French Department has been completely realigned. Upper School French Department Head and French Teacher Karine Bruno has worked with French teachers to align the curriculum from the middle school through the high school to create a logical and progressive program, without any illogical gaps in the curriculum between levels.
“It took a lot of time, dedication and respect between the middle and high school teachers,” Bruno said.
Bruno said she hopes this new system will form a smoother and more comprehensive experience for students throughout their time at the school, putting the students first.
“It was very nice to talk to the teachers in the middle school and to be able to come up with a new system together that really benefits the student before anything else,” Bruno said.
Middle School World Languages Department Chair and French Teacher, Monique Geisler, who is entering her second year at the school , said that she took the position knowing that the redesign would be occurring. Geisler said the redesign involved the selection of new textbooks, along with a refocus on what the department believed was important to teach.
“We’re focusing on speaking, listening, reading and writing,” Geisler said. “So really making sure that students are comfortable speaking and also getting all of the grammar behind the French language.”
Geisler said she wanted to emphasize the importance of ensuring that students, whether at the upper or middle school, are learning the same material in their classes.
“It doesn’t matter if you’re at the middle school or the upper school campus,” Geisler said. “If you’re in French II or French III, you should be learning the same topics.”
Geisler said that although the French Department has improved , there are still some changes that the department wants to make. With the school-wide replacement of all Advanced Placement (AP) courses with Honors courses, she said that the department needs to decide how to approach the AP exam.
“So the question is, how much do we want to prepare students for the AP exam, if not everybody’s going to take it?” Geisler said.
Along with this, she noted that the French department is working on beginning to give Integrated Performance Assessments (IPAs) , similar to the assessments that the Spanish and Chinese departments give frequently, so that all students of the living languages on campus have similar assessment experiences.
Despite the changes still to make, students are already noticing the smoother transitions between classes.
French 4 student Lucas Schlumberger said that his move from Advanced French 3 at the middle school to French 4 at the upper school went very well.
“The transition has gone really well, and I think the curriculum really helps the students if there’s some stuff that they don’t know,” Schlumberger said.
