This will provide access to African newspapers and chat rooms from specific African countries. The project will also undertake a corpus-based analysis of student postings on Course Talk in order to trace the evolution in their critical thinking and the way they position themselves towards different African cultures. Of particular interest is how students use such terms as black, white, colonialism, race, tribe, ethnic group, superstition, language, dialect over the course of the semester. It is anticipated that the results of the project can be extended in appropriate ways to the teaching of other non-Western literatures and cultures. Frequently, however, the scope of such explorations is limited to the French-speaking communities in Canada, Switzerland and Belgium.
Much less attention is focused on the communities of the Caribbean and Africa.
The project is designed to prepare a culture module on African francophone communities using web-based resources as well as various audio, visual and print and digital materials. The module will be piloted in 3rd semester French language classes and will be modified as needed. The themes of the activities will correspond to the topics covered in basic French courses and will provide useful hints for instructors and students on how to implement the activities.