Eighteenth International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities

Abstract

In this paper, we illustrate several strategies we use in our university French courses to accommodate the burgeoning diversity of our student body. We first offer a number of specifics in order to situate in context what we do, including statistics and consideration of the multiple implications facing international students on our particularly diverse campus. After briefly discussing some of the stressors they may face and the nature of their relationships with their Canadian peers, we advance the strategies we employ in order to encourage group work between international and domestic students, integrate the cultural knowledge of international students into our courses through opportunities to showcase their own culture, and generally facilitate multi-layered exchanges that improve domestic students’ cultural skills while easing international students’ acculturation adjustment. The rubrics of the courses we examine range in subject matter from linguistics and language, to literature and culture. We argue that whatever the type of course, today’s reality demands that we be prepared to adjust according to class composition all aspects of our pedagogy, including course content, style of delivery and methods of evaluation. After giving examples of each of these aspects within a variety of courses, we conclude with brief comments on the nature of our responsibility and argue that successful courses in language programs today must offer enough built-in flexibility to accommodate a wide range of individual and group needs, not least those of international students.