Italian and French departments are teaching their classes through a combination of synchronous and asynchronous class structures and have found mixed results in learning a language online.
Nancy Guilloteau, the UT French program director, said French classes are structured so students work Monday, Wednesday and Friday in asynchronous lessons at home on Canvas but have live lectures on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
“The instructor is present, and we go through the material that (students) have done as homework, but then they’re also doing group activities that are overseen by the instructor,” Guilloteau said.
Amanda Bush, the coordinator for lower division Italian, said Italian classes meet three times a week instead of five, in two-hour chunks.
“To have daily contact with the language, students are needing to meet outside of class,” Bush said. “We realize that’s not always possible for other students, so we have about an hour (or an) hour-fifteen of class every day and then breakout rooms in which students are communicating based on different language-learning tasks.”
Guilloteau said French professors used the current class structure in spring 2020 and made some changes to the course based on end-of-year surveys.
“Oftentimes, it is the struggling students who will ask for more practice, listening comprehension activities or something specific,” Guilloteau said. “Overall, I’ve had a lot of students tell me they really like the format and the organization of the French classes.”
Italian assistant instructor Ariana Avalle said she wants to create a more personal connection with students even through Zoom.
“A challenge is how we keep the students engaged in online classes,” Avalle said. “Mine is a 9 a.m., so it’s not that early but still early for (students). … It’s also harder because of technology with Zoom. You’re always afraid that you’re going to talk over each other.”
Avalle said she wants her students to be safe but she wants to see if more socially distanced activities can be done next semester.
“Maybe… (meeting) at a park where we all social distance and have conversation there in an environment where it’s not just the computer,” Avalle said. “Most of my students told me that this structure is not bad for what we can do right now but hopefully in the future, when the situation is better, we can (have class) in person.”
Journalism junior Margaret Wirick, an intermediate French student, said learning a language over Zoom is difficult.
“So much focus is on pronunciation, especially in French, and it’s hard to grasp through a computer,” Wirick said. “I find the individual modules more helpful than the Zoom class. I love French, and I want to learn the language, but it’s really difficult to focus in general because of the pandemic and because Zoom is so impersonal.”
Guilloteau and Bush plan to keep the current structure of the classes next semester.
“With COVID-19, we realize that learning a language is not something we can do with masks on,” Bush said. “All of the languages at UT have decided to go to an online model, and we have been recommended to use both a synchronous and asynchronous model to have students communicating rather than completing grammar exercises all the time.
