Professor Brezault just presented at the NEMLA conference in Boston on “Reframing French classes in the era of AI.”

Brezault reflects on what it means to teach a foreign language with AI. Can we really reduce the teaching of a language to its practicality? She advocates for the importance of Humanities in teaching French. Learning a language is more complex than just mastering its grammatical rules. By teaching a language, you teach a worldview that can’t be reduced to a computer algorhythm. You give students an opportunity to embrace the discomforts to be yourself in translation, you allow them to understand those uncomfortable feelings (of not fully understanding everything, including who you are in a foreign language). She argues that learning a foreign language such as French helps our students become more astute and self-critical citizens in today’s globalized world by decentering their American perspectives.