name: Mary Anne O'Neil

institution: Whitman College

language: French

status: Full-time, tenure track

project:

title: Provinces de France: Le Pays basque (French Basque Country)\

duration: Summer, 1998

description: This second of a 12-part series of lessons on the French provinces will study the Basque country of southern France. The Basque people, who live in both France and Spain, have their own language and a unique culture that has survived in modern times. I intend to travel to the Basque country, gather materials such as history books, postcards, travel brochures, commercial videos and music from the region. I also intend to produce my own materials, in the form of photographs, video tapes, and recordings. By going to the Basque country, not only will I be able to find a greater variety of resources, but I will also be able to address copyright issues on the spot. By creating my own materials, I will, of course, avoid the copyright problem altogether. I plan to travel in June, and then create the computer-assisted instructional
materials in July and August. This lesson is part of a continuing inter-institutional collaboration with Professor Francoise Goeury-Richardson of Willamette University. As we did on the Alsace project, we will share the work on this project. I will do the initial composition of the history, literature and cooking sections. I will share the work with Francoise on the introduction and the important cities.

outcome: Our purpose is to create multi-media materials to teach the geography, history, customs, and literature of the French Basque Country. The outcome will be a six-part lesson with visual and sound aids that can be used by advanced students of French to study this less well-known region of modern France. The lesson on the Basque country will give advanced second-year students and third-year students materials to increase their reading and writing abilities in French, subjects for class discussions and exposes, as well as a greater exposure to the varied cultures of France.

timeline:
June: travel to the French Basque country, where I will gather and produce primary materials, specifically, photographs, music, videotapes,travel brochures, books.
July: I will write the portions of the lesson involving history, important places, the introduction and recipes.
August: I will assemble the above portions of the lesson using the Whitman workstation. This will involve scanning, authoring the texts on the computer, annotating texts with vocabulary, pictures, videos and music. I also hope during this month to put together my portions of the Basque lesson with those produced by Francoise Goeury-Richardson, so that we can have the whole lesson assemble by the beginning of the 1998-1999 academic year.
September-October: I will ask Whitman faculty and students to evaluate the lesson.

amount: $3600

breakdown:
Travel grant: $1000
Sumnmer stipend: $2600