Over the past month, one of Professor Nancy Durbin’s classes at Lindenwood University has participated in another session of the French Program. During the program, French-learners are given tours of the Pulitzer’s current exhibition in both English and French and then asked to give tours in French to high school students. Below is a reflection from Lindenwood student Emma Odenwald on working with a native French speaker. You can read more related posts on the French Program page.

I’m a junior at Lindenwood University participating in the French program at the Pulitzer for the second year in a row. This year, during the the program for Urban Alchemy/Gordon Matta-Clark, we were fortunate enough to have three native French speakers in our class. Each non-native speaker was paired up with a native French speaker to prepare and give tours.

Working with a native French speaker has been very beneficial in preparing our presentation of the works of Gordon Matta-Clark. There are a lot of words associated with urban decay and the transformation of rundown buildings that I was not exactly familiar with. Having a French speaker to help with unfamiliar words was very helpful. Before every tour so far I have been nervous, but my partner, Yasmina, has been very good at reassuring me that I will do fine.

When starting this project we always get a tour of the exhibition in French with Matthias Waschek, the director of the Pulitzer. He has so much knowledge of each artwork at the Pulitzer and teaches us a lot. On the other hand, the tour is somewhat intimidating to me, as an English speaker. Hearing so much French being spoken so fast, I was nervous that I was not getting all the important information. However, I was able to understand most of what we were being told by Matthias and eventually understood everything.

I think that our training with Matthias and having our French partners working with us on our tours has been essential for perfecting our tours. I was able to hear the different French words that I was not familiar with, learn what they were and hear the correct pronunciation of the words. Yasmina has helped me a lot with having the correct pronunciation of words and making my French easy enough and comprehendible for the high school students who come for the tours.

Compared to last year, I’m getting more out of my experience this time around because I’m getting help from the French students in our class and learning new things about the French language each day.--Emma Odenwald