Students rarely end up later in life teaching the same undergraduate course they took in college, but that’s what Heather Dreano and Lesley Smith are doing now, thanks to an assist from their former University of South Carolina professor.
Fourteen years ago, Dreano and Smith were enrolled in a conversational French course taught by Lara Lomicka Anderson in which USC students conversed in weekly video chats with French students. They also traveled to France to meet their language partners and hosted them for a reciprocal visit in Columbia.
Since then, Smith earned a Ph.D. in linguistics and became a French instructor at USC. Dreano moved to France shortly after graduating from USC in 2010 and has taught English as a second language there for 13 years.
“A year ago, I was able to teach the language exchange course with Dr. Anderson, which was a lot of fun,” says Dreano, who is on the faculty of the engineering and science college at the University of South Brittany in western France. “But then she joined the provost’s office and couldn’t continue it, so I was looking for another teaching partner.”
Lomicka, now USC’s vice provost for undergraduate affairs and dean of undergraduate studies, soon found a match for her former student — another former student.
“I saw Lesley Smith’s name on the roster for teaching French 210 this fall,” Lomicka says, “and I thought that would be the perfect connection — they both were in my class together years ago, and now they could actually work together.”
They have a lot of anxiety about communicating with native French speakers. But many of them are going abroad next semester, and they have to learn to speak the language. This is a gentle way to get them into that."
Smith was immediately on board for the collaboration.
“Absolutely, because it was such a wonderful experience for us,” says Smith, who worked for the language learning app company DuoLingo before joining USC’s faculty. “Our students at USC don’t have a lot of access to French speakers and media, so they have a lot of anxiety about communicating with native French speakers. But many of them are going abroad next semester, and they have to learn to speak the language. This is a gentle way to get them into that.”
Dreano and Smith say their respective students seem to be enjoying the interactive course as much as they did when they took it in 2010.
“My students are all civil engineering majors, and they're just so invested in our classes,” Dreano says. “Every Friday — at 4 p.m. for us, the last class at the end of the week — they come with so much energy, just so ready to go online and talk with the students in Lesley’s classroom at USC.”
Students from the two universities video chat back and forth with one another on assigned topics, switching at intervals between English and French. The students also converse through email messages and offer corrections to each other’s syntax, spelling and grammar.
“It’s easier for them to learn through each other,” Smith says. “And they’re learning how to negotiate and navigate a conversation with someone in another language. That’s an important skill to develop.”
Dreano and Smith say some of their students have struck up cross-Atlantic friendships outside of class, and the two instructors hope to add an exchange component to the collaboration so that students can experience each other’s cultures in person.
“I tell my students that when I took this course years ago, it changed my life,” Dreano says. “Those 10 days in France inspired me to take what was supposed to be a gap year in Paris before law school. Now, 13 years later, I’m raising a family in France and teaching. I tell my students, ‘I’m so excited for you because I think this course could be something incredible for you.’”