Dear reader,
Hello! Bonjour! Thank you for being here. In this section, you'll learn what this project is about, what motivates it, what you won't find here, and what you can find here. Whether you're a language educator, learner, lover, or anything else, I hope you find at least one idea that's helpful for you in whatever you do, or simply in life. If not, let me know what's missing! Welcome 💛
What this project is about
This project starts by opening up ways to practice French language education oriented toward hope, gratitude, peace, and joy at the university level where English is the non-target language of instruction. However, it is not limited to French language education, the university level, nor educational settings with English as the non-target language of instruction. The practices within this project are based on a culture of care, where compassionate rigor is practiced at all levels of the learning experience. They draw inspiration from practices in Compassionate Pedagogy, Ubuntu Pedagogy, and Professional Coaching (applied to a language learning context), among other practices. The desired classroom is seen as a sacred space with an uplifting, loving, peaceful mental atmosphere that all may contribute to and benefit from.
Ultimately, this project points out a way to unify all language education through the common objective of (re)learning the language of love that transcends human language, spoken through actions of care, compassion, belonging, hope, gratitude, and infinitely more along these lines. It aims to plant seeds of peace and joy in language education and actively nourish the hope for peace and joy to blossom everywhere languages are taught, with the hope of the same everywhere languages are spoken, written, read, and listened to.
What about Peace? / What about Freedom? / What about love for all the children in this crazy world? 🙏
~ Slimane, Résister (What about Peace?)
Motivations
Why French?
Besides being commonly referred to as the "language of love", standardized French (the variety typically taught in French courses) is a particularly rigorous language with many grammar and spelling rules that lack flexibility. The concept of 'le bon usage' or 'the correct usage' is highly emphasized (and critiqued) in francophone spaces, and the degree of one's adherence to 'le bon usage' can be thought to show one's intelligence, competence, or value in society. Besides leading to discrimination based on one's language practices--what French linguist Philippe Blanchet terms 'la glottophobie' (Blanchet 2016)--emphasizing strict adherence to 'le bon usage' and punishing 'mistakes' can also lead to people being afraid to communicate, says French linguist Anne Abeillé, also known as linguistic insecurity. This happens even for people who grow up speaking French! To alleviate this fear, and since mistakes are inevitably part of the learning process, we can shift the ultimate objective of language learning beyond language 'mastery' to rather learning widely applicable skills for peaceful living such as gratitude and hope. The (French) language simply serves as a vehicle for learning these language-transcending skills that promote the peace of individuals and the whole community.
Why at the university level?
University courses are also particularly rigorous, with many (mainly logistical) practices and policies passed down from previous generations. Many of these logistical aspects lack the flexibility necessary for meeting today's students' needs as whole people balancing studies with other aspects of their lives, such as earning income, caring for family, etc. By intentionally practicing a culture of care in all aspects of the learning experience, from course logistics to activities, courses can contribute to learners' feeling supported in learning and in life.
Why Rice?
At Rice, the Culture of Care is part of the University's mission statement and is a key aspect of undergraduate life, especially in the residential colleges. Actively seeking ways to practice the Culture of Care in the academic side of university life seamlessly aligns with the university's overall mission and the goals of the undergraduate experience.
Why hope, gratitude, and compassion?
These three aspects have been identified to contribute to an overall sense of well-being and satisfaction. With mental health concerns in the academic community at an unprecedented high, there is a need to search for and implement practical ways to intentionally structure learning environments to promote both the learning and well-being of students and educators.
Hope, gratitude, and compassion can be learned. Since one can learn and practice these through any language, it makes sense to learn these skills in conjunction with learning language.
Why peace and joy?
Actions and language based on peace and joy are a powerful resistance against currents of violence and despair that swirl around many areas where language is practiced (news, social media, etc.). With peace and joy as both means and objectives in language education, there opens a mental space where learners can learn to freely express their agency as thinkers and actors toward a peaceful, joyful world for themselves and everyone.
Why now?
The world can feel like a very dark place of fear, hate, uncertainty, exclusion. We can't ignore this, as ignoring issues does nothing to help resolve them. Looking to science for inspiration, we find that the darkest caves and darkest skies are actually filled with light, it's just invisible to the human eye. There is light even behind black holes!
Just like special telescopes help people see spectrums of light invisible to the human eye, we can choose (or not) to observe the world through a lens of gratitude and hope. Looking through a telescope can sometimes be blurry and dark, but gently turning the knob to adjust the focus brings the beauty of the night sky into clarity. Likewise, in a world and media landscape that holds the world's darkest conflicts and atrocities before our eyes, gratitude and hope can help us gently adjust our focus to bring good into clarity, even in the darkest times. By proactively recognizing and focusing on the love and good in our lives and that which can come, we can make visible and tangible the love and good that was once invisible and intangible. And we can take action accordingly.
While it is impossible to turn darkness into light, what we can do is turn our mental gaze towards light thanks to gratitude and hope. And in spaces of fear, hate, uncertainty, and exclusion, we all possess the agency to intentionally practice their opposites: compassion, gratitude, hope, belonging, etc.), filling the spaces we're in with the tender light of care. This project puts forward some ideas for how to do this in language education.
With this in mind, this project does not aim to change anything, fix anything, or transform anything about anyone. It simply aims to point out simple ways to turn to and focus on the love and good that already exists, even if it appears in the smallest little ways.
Gazing up with sad, lonely, tired eyes at the dark, cold, stormy night sky, we can remember the stars and let the sun gently rise in our hearts. ✨🌅
What you won't find here
A silver-bullet fix to all problems
A prescriptive set of rules that must be followed
A command to just "think positively! 😀" and ignore challenges
What you can find here
A collection of key definitions & clarifications
Language of Love
Culture of Care
Land of Hope
Compassion
Rigor
An explanation of why elements of 'compassion' and 'rigor' can and should blend
Compassionate Rigor
Language Pedagogy-specific terminology
Ideas of pedagogical/learning practices for putting 'compassionate rigor', Ubuntu pedagogy, and Coaching Pedagogy into action, for both educators and learners
New vocabulary to express the synergy of compassion and rigor, including ideas for application in language learning
An opportunity to add your own entries to the Compassionate Rigor Dictionary + Practice Guide
A collection of activities for various learning levels, sorted by theme (gratitude, hope, compassion, belonging, etc.), with multilingual variations of each.
An opportunity to add your own activities to the Language of Love Activities Collection
An annotated bibliography of references
Gratitude for all those who have helped inspire and support this project
Un peu plus près des étoiles / Là où les rêves n'ont pas de frontières / Pour oublier l'apesanteur sur Terre
(A little closer to the stars / There where dreams have no limits / To forget the weight of the world)
Un peu plus près des étoiles / Pour leur emprunter un peu de lumière / Revenir sur Terre la tête pleine d'espoir ✨
(A little closer to the stars / To borrow a little light from them / Come back to Earth, head full of hope)
~ Soprano, Près des étoiles
Feel free to explore at your own pace, play around, engage with the content, and have fun!
With amour,
Paige 🥰
