Our Department of Romance Languages and Literatures is one of the most active in the country. We are deeply committed at Washington University to a personable program of excellent quality. In and out of classes, professors try to create an open as well as supportive environment for the development of graduate students in diverse fields. The program is primarily literary with attention given to all periods and genres, yet there is unusual freedom for you and your advisor to plan a course of study that responds to your specific needs and interests. Our faculty's fields of interest and expertise combine the study of French literature with French politics, philosophy, and theory, science, the arts, and film and the study of France with other Francophone regions including Africa, the Caribbean, and North America. In addition to the full range of literary offerings, we also give courses on advanced grammar, phonetics, and philology.

Graduate students have the possibility of pursuing a Masters or Doctoral degree in French or a joint degree in French and Comparative Literature. They may, in addition, earn a Graduate Certificate in Language Instruction or Women's Studies. Students who hold appointments as Teaching Assistants are trained in the methods of Communicative Language Teaching and teach on all levels in an undergraduate language program recognized widely as one of the most successful in the United States.

Our program is pleased to provide its students with highly competitive graduate stipends. We also offer a unique opportunity to participate in our exchange program with the École Normale Supérieure, lettres et sciences humaines in Lyon, France.

For the different degrees offered in French, please follow the links:

• Master of Arts in French
• Doctor of Philosophy in French Language and Literature
• Doctor of Philosophy in Romance Languages and Comparative Literature
• Graduate Certificate in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
• Graduate Certificate in Language Instruction

Recent Course Offerings in French

French Faculty

Graduate Student Bios

Downloadable Brochure (PDF)

Fellowships, Assistantships and Awards Fellowships

Financial support includes: six years of funding; the last (6th) year support is in form of a full-year Dissertation Fellowship (no teaching duties). Currently all graduate students in the department receive financial support in the form of renewable teaching assistantships or fellowships, each carrying generous stipends ($17,940 for 2009-2010) and full tuition scholarship. Qualified candidates can compete for multi-year graduate fellowships awarded by the Graduate School: Olin Graduate Fellowship for Women and the Chancellor's Graduate Fellowship for African-Americans. Full one-semester fellowships (no teaching responsibilities) are granted to all new students in one of the first 2 semesters of study.

In French, one outstanding student is nominated each year to be the recipient of the Egilsrud Fellowship; this endowed fund contributes to the funding of his or her graduate school.

In addition, doctoral students working toward Graduate Certificates in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies can apply for Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Interdisciplinary Teaching Assistantships.

Click here for the Graduate Summer Funding form.

Awards

Each year faculty committees of the Department nominate outstanding graduate students in French to receive a number of awards to honor their achievements.

A candidate may be nominated annually for the Dean of the Graduate School’s Graduate Teaching Award; supporting materials are forwarded to the Graduate School and selected students receive this award during the spring.

Within the Department there are presently three endowed awards (one for each language section except Portuguese) to honor graduate student excellence. In French, the Elizabeth Schreiber Award for the Excellence as a Teaching Assistant is awarded annually to a student or students selected on the basis of faculty evaluations of their teaching.

Exchange Programs

The department also offers one outstanding exchange program that allows interested students to spend one year at the École Normale Supérieure, a very prestigious school located in Lyon. There they improve their language and teaching skills while taking classes, conducting research, and acquiring invaluable cultural experience. They thus have the opportunity to study and conduct classes alongside native French speakers, several of whom regularly enrich our program in the States.

Teaching Development Program for Graduate Students

Teaching development for graduate students in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures features a comprehensive and systematic apprenticeship in the theory and practice of teaching Romance languages with ample supervision throughout. The goal of the Teaching Development Program is to prepare excellent teachers for the 21st century. This goal dovetails with the departmental objective of creating excellent scholars and excellent colleagues. The Teaching Development Program includes Master's and Doctoral candidates and is required of all full-time graduate students whose financial support comes from the teaching assistantship.

The Teaching Development Program has 6 phases:

• Teaching Orientation for beginning graduate teaching assistants. This is an intensive one-week program in August prior to the opening of classes.
• Graduate Seminar in Methods of Teaching Romance Languages. A required one-semester course that runs concurrently with supervised lower-level language teaching. Seminar topics may include an overview of second language acquisition theories; historical and contemporary teaching methodologies; integration of technology into curriculum; issues in testing and assessment.
• Supervised lower-level language teaching. All first-year teaching assistants serve a teaching apprenticeship as team members of multi-sectioned courses under faculty supervision. This includes observations, consultations, video filming, and written commentary.
• Teaching Practice. Mid-career graduate students have exposure to teaching at several levels, primarily in multi-sectioned courses. At all times, graduate students work under faculty supervision with frequent consultation. They have opportunities to plan curricular units, develop tests, evaluate students, and begin teaching literary texts.
• Annual Instructional Methods Workshop. The language and literature departments offer a workshop for graduate students, often presented by a national figure in language instructional methods. Recent workshops have featured Sally Magnan (University of Wisconsin, Madison); Robert DiDonato (Miami University of Ohio); and Mari Koda and Galil Walker (Ohio State University).
• Advanced Teaching Preparation. The department in collaboration with the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures, offers a capstone course, designed exclusively for Ph.D. candidates who have finished all course work. This unique seminar, "Integrating Technology into Language Instruction," provides theoretical and practical training which reflects contemporary efforts to enhance language teaching with technological resources such as CD-ROMS, the Internet, and electronic communication.

Job Preparation

A series of workshops is held every year which cover important job-related issues. Students are all highly encouraged to attend and participate actively in the discussions. Topics covered usually include such matters as academic essay writing and publishing, networking within the profession, the current and future job markets, and conference paper preparation and delivery. (Funding is available to help defray travel expenses of doctoral candidates whose papers have been approved for conferences by two Graduate faculty members and by the conference organizers.) Link to: GRADUATE PROFESSIONAL PAPER POLICY AND DEPARTMENTAL FORM FOR CONFERENCE PARTICIPATION.

In addition, mock interviews are scheduled and may be videotaped ahead of time in the department for those advanced students wishing to attend the MLA annual convention and who may already have job interviews scheduled. Such mock interviews allow students to assess their own interviewing skills and to prepare for productive meetings with prospective employers.

Preparation for the job market also entails a pre-MLA briefing about trends in foreign language instructional methods based on recent research, textbooks, and methodologies. Faculty members assist candidates with preparation of a teaching philosophy statement and portfolio and with preparation for the teaching aspect of on-campus interviews. Finally, when hired, graduate students may receive assistance in the initial development of course materials as a new faculty member.

For further information about the Teaching Development Program, please contact Joe Barcroft or Cindy Brantmeier. For more information on the French graduate program, contact Professor Pascal Ifri, Director of Graduate Studies in French. Applications and brochures may be obtained from the Administrative Assistant for the graduate programs, Ms. Helene Abrams.

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