bienvenue مرحبا

A native of Western Pennsylvania whose roots are in the mountains of Northeast Tennessee, Rebecca is a 4th year PhD student (ABD) in the Department of French and Italian, with a concentration in Francophone Studies. She has recently defended her doctoral thesis, titled “Mon père, l’Etranger”: représentations et stéréotypes des immigrés algériens en France" and the table of contents is now available online.

 

She holds a MA in French Literature (2006) and a BA in Political Science and French (2003), and an International Business Certificate (2003).  Although she has experience teaching a variety of classes from advanced grammar classes for majors and translations classes for graduate students to basic language and French culture classes, she has also taught a lecture course on the History of Paris at Penn State. Rebecca is currently teaching Business French and Introduction to Reading and Writing in Literature. Her interests are interdisciplinary, ranging from French Immigration Literature and History to Arabic language studies and Colonial/Post-colonial Politics. See her Statement of Research Interests

When she is away from the university setting, she enjoys spending time assisting immigrants in the Iowa City community through ESL tutoring and various leadership activities in conjunction with the University of Iowa Office of International Scholars and Students (OISS). She also promotes cultural understanding among children through French language enrichment courses that she teaches at an area elementary school and working with area high school students. During university breaks, she spends time with family in Marseille and enjoys relaxing in her summer home in Dordogne.

classes recently taught

semester/year course number course title
Fall 2011 9:115 Business French
Fall 2010-Spring 2012 9:111 Introduction to Reading and Writing in Fr
Summer 2011 9:206 French for Research II (graduate level)
Fall 2009-Spring 2010 9:112 French Grammar
Summer 2009 9:205 French for Research (graduate level)
Fall 2008-Spring 2009 9:111 Introduction to Reading and Writing in Fr
  More...

teaching philosophy

The theoretical framework for my teaching lies in the socio-cultural approach of a communicative classroom.  This learner-centered approach emphasizes a classroom that incorporates communication between learners and a new culture, as well as connections and comparisons between previously held beliefs and new perspectives, within the context of a community of learners.  Second language acquisition permits the expansion of learners’ communicative worlds. An educator’s role is to assist learners and make them aware of their skills through strategically guided interaction.  Language development is an effect of exposure to both the material and social worlds. Continued ...

office hours

Spring 2012:

Mon., Wed. 9-10:30 am

511 Phillips Hall

The University of Iowa

Iowa City, Iowa

map

email: rebecca-leal@uiowa.edu

tel: 319-353-2214

upcoming activities

“Motherhood in Exil: Myths and Representations of Franco-Algerian Post-War Maternity.”  Women in French Conference, Arizona State University, Feb 24-25, 2012.