The Impact of American Literature on the Foreign Studying Process

Not long ago, my thesis advisor told me about the FLTA program and it immediately caught my interest. I have always been fascinated by American literature and for a long time I have been considering moving to an anglophone country. I believe gaining experience abroad would allow me to develop my professional skills as well as evolve personally. In other words, following your program would be the ideal next step in my academic career. After my studies in Philosophy I went to Armenia through the Erasmus + program entitled “Gates and Keys : Meeting the Others” for two weeks. Here I was part of a group of 50 students from 10 differents countries, in which each of us had to represent his or her country and culture.

This trip was an eye-opener to me, making me realize to what extent international and multicultural exchanges are fondamental, especially when it comes to education. I strongly believe in the necessity of conveying and spreading this awareness in education as well as academic research. Getting the chance to represent my culture abroad while being a French assistant would be an optimal way to achieve this dual goal. For the past three years, I have been teaching and mentoring students of different ages. While finishing my own bachelor’s degree in Modern Literature in 2016, I started an internship of tutoring which consisted in giving private French lessons to students in middle school. This internship made me realize how comfortable I felt in this job and that teaching was something which inspired me. I have thus kept teaching while studying for my Master’s program in Modern Literature. Currently I am giving private classes at home, as well as working as a tutor for two different institutions, giving classes in French for native speakers, mainly focusing on literature and writing. My first employer is my own university and this job involves helping B.A. students master with the methodologies necessary to pass the different exams and competitions required to become a French public secondary school teacher. Secondly, as part of the Aquitaine Region’s arrangement to prevent early school drop out, I help high school students with their homework in French and Philosophy. The students who take advantage of this free service offered by the Aquitaine Region are frequently foreign students who struggle to adjust to the French school system, its specific methods, and the particularities of the language. Apart from my professional occupations, I have arranged linguistic exchanges - typically called “doing a tandem” or having a “language partner” - with anglophone people from several different countries, where we have given each other classes in our respective native languages.

After having tried different teaching methods at work, I have learned to balance a friendly and a firm attitude while teaching. I am sure that the students’ social surroundings are essential for them to succeed. In order to stay motivated and focused at school, they need people who are genuinely interested in them as individuals and concerned with their specific needs. This is what I aim to be, therefore I am extremely pleased everytime I manage to support them and contribute to their academic and personal development. My work experiences have given me the chance to develop my capacity to explain in a clear and understandable way. Furthermore, they have made me aware that being a good French teacher demands not only a thorough knowledge, but also good communication skills, an asset which I believe I possess both naturally and as a result of all these experiences. It has made me see the teacher-student relationship as being based on a mutual improvement where sharing knowledge is the main goal.

If I get the opportunity to go to the U.S, I would like to take part in cultural and linguistic exchanges, not solely in the education sector but also by volunteering in local associations, for example by organizing entertaining activities to exchange about French culture, such as a workshop about the typical French “chansons”, the French cinema or a local philosophy “café”. Currently, alongside my studies, I take singing and dancing classes and occasionally take part in marathons and runs for charity. Moreover, I have a passion for cinema and I love to attend culture festivals and conferences. And of course I enjoy reading and writing. These are activities that I would like to continue doing abroad. Environmental questions and animal rights are also subjects of great importance to me, which is the reason why I am a member of the national association called L214.

Here, we fight against animal abuse, distributing flyers to raise awareness about our campaign, arranging protests in the streets and organizing panel discussions, amongst other things. Being a French assistant in an American university would also help me reach my long-term career goal : to become a literature professor specialized in American literature. The reason for this more recent objective is my passion for the work of William Faulkner. My Ph.D. dissertation will definitely be devoted to his work. I am currently finishing the second, and last year of my Master’s degree and for my M.A. dissertation I have chosen to reflect on the different aspects of the “tragic” in Faulkner’s novels The Sound and the Fury and Absalom, Absalom! My project consist in interpreting these two texts in the light of the theories developed by Nietzsche in his work The Birth of Tragedy. As a consequence of my having chosen the work of Faulkner as my speciality within literature, I cannot imagine to pursue my studies without going and staying abroad, in direct contact with American language and culture - and, more geographically - closer to places where I can access documents precious to my subject. I hope that, given my credentials, experiences and interests, my application may inspire your interest, and ultimately your support.