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French teachers and students attend a pre-departure orientation at Union College on May 21 to prepare for a group project in Cameroon.
Seated, from left to right: Cynthia Richards, E.A. Laney High School, N.C.; Fidelis Achenjang, Ph.D., Union College; Charles Jones, Ph.D., Union College; Sara Rosemary Jordan, E.A. Laney High School, N.C.
Middle row, left to right: Beth Ann Shaffer, Berkeley County Schools, W.V.; Elizabeth Cloyd, West Jessamine High School, Ky.; Megan Dunbar, Signal Mountain High School, Tenn.; Annie Remillard, King College, Tenn.; Linda Mattinson, Ragsdale High School, N.C.
Back row, left to right: Oscar Niyiragira, St. Matthew Elementary School, Ky.; Melissa Early, Atherton High School, Ky.; Joshua Doty, Pleasure Ridge Park High School, Ky.; Joseph Christian Suppa, Bethany College, W.V.; and Haley M. Fedor, Bethany College, W.V.
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Union College Prepares Teachers for Cameroon
Twelve current and future K-12 French teachers were students for two days in May at Union College in Barbourville. The group attended a pre-departure orientation on May 21 and 22 to prepare for a field experience in Cameroon, Africa.
The teachers are primarily from the central Appalachian region. They applied for the project after learning that Union College won a Fulbright Hayes Group Projects Abroad (GPA) grant to fund the trip. Union selected 12 participants from Kentucky, North Carolina, Tennessee and West Virginia.
According to Fidelis Achenjang, Ph.D., the project leader at Union, the trip gives participants an opportunity to develop language, cultural and pedagogical skills, and will support curriculum development. Achenjang is a native of Cameroon. He led his first Fulbright Hayes GPA to the central-west African country in 2007.
Project participants were treated to two days of workshops on geography, navigation, health preparation, climate, safety, cultural practices and more. They also heard from participants in 2007’s GPA project, who were able to answer questions from first-hand experience in the country.
Megan Dunbar, a teacher with Signal Mountain High School in Hamilton County, Tenn., says the project will help her and others “bring real life experience into the classroom.”
“I want to bring the world into the classroom as much as I can,” she said.
Annie Remillard, from King College in Johnson County, Tenn., echoed Dunbar’s sentiment.
“It will make them (students) better world citizens,” says Remillard. “Plus, they understand their own culture better when they study other cultures.” Remillard also said that the opportunity to bring back artifacts will make the study of language and culture “very relevant, very real” to students.
Students Haley Fedor and Joseph Suppa, both of Bethany College in West Virginia, are eager to enhance their study of French, and that of their future students. Fedor believes the group project will help her understand and teach “the diversity of language,” while Suppa is looking forward to an immersion experience in African-French culture.
The group will depart for the five-week experience in mid-June and return in late July.
To learn more about Union and the Fulbright Hayes project, visit http://public.unionky.edu/fulbright.
Union College is a private liberal arts college located in Barbourville, Ky., and related to the United Methodist Church.
June 1, 2010
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