Bonjour tout le monde and welcome back to the 255! In celebration of international language week, we wanted to showcase the amazing work of our own language programs here at MMC. Specifically, we are highlighting a new initiative by Professor Huntington to provide a space for all her French students to engage in dialogue with each other. Professor Huntington calls this conversational opportunity La Pause Café and encourages her students to join and practice their French abilities in a less traditional manner. Check out our interview below with Professor Huntington below and her more insights into La Pause Café. That’s right, coming your way is a new segment of #InClassToday.

What inspired you to create La Pause Café?

With many students and faculty working remotely this semester, I created La Pause Café in the interest of bringing together French speakers at MMC at all levels of language proficiency. The group is open to everyone–people who are learning French, people with rusty French, and heritage speakers. It is an opportunity for everyone to develop and improve listening and speaking skills, share ideas and perspectives, and to connect across geographic and disciplinary divides.

Professor Julie Huntington

How does La Pause Café help engage your students in the virtual space?

Since the group is participant-centered, we can mix up the topics of conversation and vary the content and group dynamics for each session. La Pause Café can be a place to practice conversation outside of class, to relax and chat, to check out new music, to organize activities, or to play games.  

Professor Huntington

Do you have plans on ever meeting in person as the weather warms up or in the Fall?

I love the idea of getting together for some group excursions in the city once the weather warms up. There are so many French connections in NYC. It is the best place in the US for connecting with French speakers and the diverse cultures of the French-speaking world. 

Professor Huntington

What are you most excited about by launching this program?

Creating a virtual space where people can connect with one another and have some fun in French is my main goal in launching La Pause Café. For students of the language, it is also an important opportunity to practice-practice-practice and to gain confidence and proficiency. 

Professor Huntington

Merci beaucoup to Professor Huntington for sharing this awesome conversational program for students. We also wanted to encourage students to check out the other foreign language programs offered at our school. Along with our French, Spanish, Arabic, and Chinese courses, we offer a many world literature courses that dives deep into global writings. If you love learning languages as much as we do here in the HUMSOC Division, you should definitely reach out to Professor Huntington about exploring these courses. The language courses offered at MMC are really cool, and who knows, they might be expanding soon… (shh!) We hope you enjoyed this segment of #InClassToday. Au revoir for now but we will see you soon! As always, a friendly reminder to be kind, stay safe, and learn a foreign language.