Communication and Persuasion in French Teaching

I am currently not a French Teaching major. BUT. I am a French major who is not quite sure where she's going, and teaching has interested me for a while, so I decided to explore rhetoric in this career.

Le tour Eiffel

It all began in eighth grade in French I. My teacher was a lovely woman from southern France, and my tongue felt like it was dripping with warm honey when I repeated after her the Bonjour's and the Je m'appelle's. She made me love French.

That in itself takes some rhetorical talent. Teaching is persuading, and Mme Benford was persuasive. If I wanted to become like her, I'd have to do a few things and persuade a few people.

Right now, I'm probs 
somewhere near the 
Intermediate Low section.

Before I even began teaching, I'd have to prove (at least to BYU) that I had reached a minimum level of Advanced Low on the ACTFL (American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages) scale. To do this, I would have to take a speaking test. Though this test mostly involves showing off your skill, rhetoric could be involved in how confident your delivery is. Artful pausing, as well, would give you time to sort your thoughts without being too obvious. These things would help with the fluidity of your speaking and show the "specialized language professional" conducting your exam that you know your stuff.

So say I miraculously pass the ACTFL exam and complete an internship. Then I land myself a place teaching French I or French 101. Très cool ! I'll tell myself. Then I'll take up the task of persuading my students to participate, learn, and do well in my class. Depending on what grade level I'm teaching, I may be the older person who's less innocent and less excited about life. I'd be the one communicating information to the kiddies most of the time in this classroom setting, and in order to persuade them, I'd need to get to their level.  Technology! Deliberative oratory! Praise and encouragement! These are the things that would capture a young student's attention and (hopefully) help them love French.

L'arc de triomphe

A few years pass and I'm getting really good at this whole teaching thing. I decide to join the American Association of Teachers of French (AATF) and go to the annual convention. While I'm at it, I create a presentation to give at the convention based on the theme they chose for that year. My extensive knowledge of French helps me craft metaphors, chiasmi, and proverbs into my presentation. And wouldn't ya know it, it's a hit! People comment on my exquisite accent and my boss tells me I just have to give the same presentation to the foreign language teachers at the school. In order to appeal to them, I tweak my presentation a little and use a more casual tone while giving it. Once again, c'est un succès !

Then I think to myself, Golly, that one assignment in Rhetoric and Civilization...it was worthwhile...