French à la carte: Customized workshops for disciplines, profiles and programs

Since 2017, the French department has undertaken a special initiative with the college’s programs and profiles. The objective of this collaboration is to create French-language workshops for students or to create custom material to help them in French in their field of study. The workshops are always tied to program needs or to the needs of the workplace that the students will be entering. The activities created vary according to the requests received. These may include requests for lexicons of specialized terms, scenarios/role playing, interaction in a work/professional setting or preparation for job interviews.

In this article, we first explain the origin of the workshop initiative and the circumstances that led to its creation. We then describe how the workshops are conducted and the different formulas that have been used. This is followed by a few concrete examples of workshop activities. Finally, we provide a summary of what has been done to date and what we envision for the future.

Origin of the project

In order to promote the improvement of the mastery of French, in 2017, the Ministry of Education and Higher Education introduced a program to help fund CEGEP initiatives. To receive funding, CEGEPs must submit an action plan and commit to developing measures to improve French language competencies. These new measures build on a foundation of activities that have existed for nearly two decades.

In 2000, the Fédération des cégeps created the Carrefour de la réussite to enable CEGEPs to meet and share knowledge for promoting the academic success of their students. Since 2011, the mandate of this community of practice has included the setting up of “activities related to the enhancement of French and the improvement of French language competencies in the colleges.”[1] The connection between colleges and the Carrefour de la réussite is ensured by a network known as Repfran (Réseau des répondants et répondantes du dossier du français). Each year, the French representatives (Repfran) from each college take part in reflection and discussion days, while reporting on French issues in their own institutions. Last October, the day focused on the theme of literacy and, in April, the meeting addressed the status of written French at the college level.

Each college chooses the activities it considers most likely to promote improvement and mastery of French in its own context. The French representative is then asked to submit an action plan detailing the choices made to help improve French. Dawson College has chosen to use the workshop formula in addition to other events to promote French. These other activities include participating in the Prix littéraire des collégiens and the Prix collégial du cinéma québécois as well as holding an annual Francophonie week in March.

Workshop procedure

We began contacting people and working with programs and profiles to create workshops in the fall of 2017. At that time, Lysanne Audy, the French representative for Dawson, established the necessary contacts to develop the first workshops and I have continued her work since the fall of 2018. Once we have consulted programs and profiles and assessed their needs with regard to improving French, we inform the technicians at CLÉO (Centre de langue écrite et orale) and work closely with them in creating workshops. To ensure that workshops meet the needs of the programs involved, we preview the workshop with the coordinators and obtain their feedback and requests for modifications before the workshops are given. While CLÉO technicians have the ability to create activities in French, collaboration with program and profile coordinators is essential to understanding the specifics of a field or of a field’s terminology. Program teachers are also asked to integrate the workshop in the curriculum to increase participation.

While CLÉO technicians have the ability to create activities in French, collaboration with program and profile coordinators is essential to understanding the specifics of a field or of a field’s terminology.

The workshops can be given to small groups of two to four students at CLÉO, taking into consideration the students’ level of language ability. It is also possible to use the workshops in the context of a particular course or seminar to better address the topics or concepts included in the program. The workshop can also be given to students at a time that is compatible with their schedules.

Each workshop is about one hour long. Depending on the number of participants and their level, several versions of a workshop can be given so as to target the competencies different groups of students need to develop. Several technicians can also run the same workshop session and thus provide more help to students. For example, some students may speak French very well, but not know the terminology specific to their field of study. In other groups, students may have a basic level of French and want to correct their pronunciation. Groups and the needs they represent can be very eclectic.

Whatever the formulas selected or the way of teaching a workshop, our idea is to review the workshops that have already been created and update them every year or semester.

To date, workshops have been designed for Analytical Chemistry, Social Service, Civil Engineering Technology, Biomedical Laboratory Technology and Radiation Oncology. For some programs, the coordinators have very specific objectives in mind for the workshop they want to set up. For example, for the Biomedical Laboratory program, the goal of the workshop was for participants to be able to perform a venipuncture while carrying out the intervention speaking French. For the Civil Engineering Technology program, we were asked to help students by designing a workshop simulating job interviews.

Our technicians, Laurence Jeudy, Denise Kolta, Anne-Marie Turcotte and Lindsay Vargas have done a wonderful job working with the programs. The exercises and activities listed below show the considerable diversity of materials they developed to support students in learning French for an academic context or the workplace:

• Warm-up activity
• Specialized lexicons, vocabulary associated with a concept/field, associations, definitions
• Written or oral expression using a video, a website or authentic materials (a form to be completed, care or treatment record, identification form …)
• Revision of grammar (polite forms of address, conjugations, formulation of questions …)
• Exercises in pronunciation or phonetics
• Transcription of information
• Discussion, practice
• Scenarios based on specific information, dialogues based on real situations, improvisation, scenarios
• Written assignments
• Preparation for the Office québécois de la langue française (OQLF) exam
• Preparation for a job interview, writing a CV in French
• Self-evaluation of French competencies

Concrete examples

Here are three excerpts from workshops that give a better idea of the CLÉO activities for improving French:

1. Vocabulary exercise

2. Scenario

3. Student self-evaluation or peer evaluation

Summary

By 2020, we hope to have a dozen different workshops that can be repeated each year as needed. These activities will then benefit new cohorts of students and be improved each year. To attain this objective, we hired another technician, Denise Kolta. Her addition should enable us to meet program needs which we hope will be enriched in the years to come. In addition to renewing the learning activities in these workshops every year, we would like to develop as many workshops as possible for every program where there is an interest in these projects. If the results of these first three years are positive, we will certainly be in a strong position to have our grant renewed for 2020-2022.

For the fall of 2019, workshops are confirmed for the following programs:

• Interior Design (workshop on materials and their use, workshops on the job interview and the workplace)
• Community Recreation and Leadership Training (leisure and recreation terminology, how to have a conversation with community partners or employees about planning an event or activity)
• Computer Science Technology (workshops on preparing CVs and interview questions)

The coordinators of the following programs and profiles have expressed interest in developing workshops in 2019 or 2020:

• Law, Society and Justice (students in this profile will be surveyed to determine their French-language needs and their interest)
• Mechanical Engineering Technology (job interview)
• Psychology (material to help students at university)
• Diagnostic Imaging (scenarios, vocabulary exercises, explanations to patients)
• Child Studies
• Travel and Tourism
• Environmental Studies

Finally, some programs – Laboratory Technology – Analytical Chemistry, Social Service and Interior Design – in addition to continuing our collaboration would like us to create a second workshop for their students.

Endnotes

[1] Fédération des cégeps, Carrefour de la réussite, http://www.lareussite.info/carrefour-historique-mission-vision/.