The Texas French Symposium (TFS) is a non-profit organization that offers an annual competition for high school students (non-native speakers) in order for them to demonstrate their skills in the French language. French teachers from Texas may bring students to compete in oral events, academic tests, art and music as well as sports competitions.

Calling all French speakers! If you are interested in helping as a judge, please write to judges@texasfrenchsymposium.org

 The French Embassy in the United States and the CLEMI (Centre de Liaison de l’Enseignement et des Medias d’Information) are making available to teachers of French a webradio platform to work on climate.  The training session will teach educators the didactic and pedagogical approach of radio language.

Two teacher  training sessions will take place in Texas.

The webinar will be April 5th, on "L’enseignement de la culture dans le curriculum des langues" with Dr. Anne Lair (PhD, Ohio State University), who directs the French Language program at the University of Utah. She is also the Secondary French Dual Immersion Program State Coordinator.

Please note, the next webinar will be Tuesday May 3rd. The application deadline will be announced in the next newsletter.

If you are looking for training opportunities, whether for French as Foreign Language (FLE) or for bilingual classes, if you are interested in resources for your classes, if you need information on diploma recognition or the DELF-DALF exams (Diplôme d'Etudes en Langue Française - Diplôme Approfondi de Langue Française) please read the A to Z of the CIEP: http://www.ciep.fr/sources/ciep-a-a-z/Le-CIEP-de-A-a-Z-2015-2016/index.html

Albertine, the French Embassy’s reading room and bookshop in New York, is now offering a selection of nearly 28,000 high quality French language ebooks via its website, Albertine.com. The vast majority of these ebooks are available in the U.S. for the first time and the selection reflects Albertine’s high literary standards.

Curated by Marcel Jean, Artistic Director of the Annecy International Animated Film Festival, this program is composed of eight of the best French animated short films from the 2015 Annecy Festival, with English subtitles. They are free and can be used for pedagogical purposes. 

For more information on how to access the videos, please contact the Cultural Service

Teachers and professors can access the Institut Français Cinéma platform where more than 300 movies and educational material are available.

Le CiNeMa Club is a new form of online cinema, which presents one film at a time, for one week, for free. Le CiNeMa Club showcases the gems of independent cinema — works by new directors, rare films, and curated documentaries. The sleek and simple website is designed to connect films, filmmakers and their audience.

ARTE, the European culture channel, now offers a selection of programmes subtitled in English on www.arte.tv/en and in Spanish on www.arte.tv/es, alongside French and German.

Thanks to these two free offerings, ARTE in English and ARTE en español, web users can watch new, high quality programmes every week throughout the world.

France dedicates 2.23% of its GDP (i.e. about 45 billion Euros) to private and public research activities. About 67,000 students are registered in Doctorat (PhD) courses in France, and every year, about 13,000 pass their degree. In France, the Doctorat course is largely open to international students: almost 50% of PhD students come from abroad.

Being bilingual has some obvious advantages. Learning more than one language enables new conversations and new experiences. But in recent years, psychology researchers have demonstrated some less obvious advantages of bilingualism, too. For instance, bilingual children may enjoy certain cognitive benefits, such as improved executive function — which is critical for problem solving and other mentally demanding activities.