Connections - Exploring Charles Moravia’s Le fils du tapissier: épisode de la vie de Molière in the Introductory French Language Classroom

Oct 15, 2026

This paper presents an approach to “Connections,” one of the five Cs in World Readiness Standards for Learning Languages, using drama-based pedagogy to expose introductory language students to culturally diverse authentic texts. The approach is designed for instructors working within an established departmental curriculum, yet it supports a two-day sequence where students collaborate through engagement with Francophone playwright Charles Moravia’s work. The activity is embedded in textbook grammar and vocabulary, aligned to communicative goals, and informed by the graduate instructor’s doctoral interests, strengthening both instruction and student engagement while maintaining proficiency-based classroom needs.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages14

Reading Time35 min

AccessFree to download

Connections standard and course constraints

Connections as a proficiency-based teaching goal

Two-day drama-based instructional sequence

Integration with textbook grammar and vocabulary

Aligning with communicative goals and instructor interests

Historical consciousness and L2 community engagement

MLA recommendations for transcultural content and reflection

Scaffolding immersive experiences for student readiness

3 Connections: Exploring Charles Moravia’s Le fils du tapissier: épisode de la vie de Molière in the Introductory French Language Classroom Jacob Abell Vanderbilt University Stacey Margarita Johnson Vanderbilt University Abstract This paper describes one approach to focusing on Connections, one of the five Cs from the World Readiness Standards for Learning Languages, as a means of exposing introductory language students to culturally diverse authentic texts through drama-based pedagogy. Our approach focuses on an instructor working within an established departmental curriculum for introductory language courses. Despite these constraints, the instructor was able to create a two-day instructional sequence that allowed students to interact with each other through their engagement with the work of the Francophone playwright Charles Moravia (1875-1938). The activity sequence was embedded in the grammar and vocabulary presented in the assigned textbook chapter, aligned with the communicative goals for the unit, and also integrated the graduate student instructor’sown doctoral research interests in a way that was energizing for instructor and students alike. The authors demonstrate the viability of expanding a given syllabus to offer novice language students a more culturally diverse range of authentic texts, including a range of genres, all while consistently serving the needs of a proficiency-based classroom. Keywords: proficiency, drama-based pedagogy, Francophone, authentic texts, novice learners Instructors who teach coordinated multi-section courses face a number of complex dynamics in their classrooms while often having little say in determining the curriculum or the syllabus. Day-to-day instructional decisions are typically guided by the needs of standardized assessments rather than the interests and expertise of the instructor or the students. We are especially conscious of the challenges faced by graduate student instructors, who are likely to be new to the classroom, engaged in highly specialized study within their field, and also developing signature pedagogiesand techniques that they will carry with them into future faculty positions. In this article, we argue that instructors teaching under such constraints can effectively integrate their own literary and cultural interests into their teaching, expand the syllabus to include diverse representation, and scaffold the types of immersive and community-engaged practices that are the hallmark of upper-level lan- 46 Dimension 2021 guage study. All this can be done while also teaching for proficiency and meeting the goals of the coordinated syllabus. As Lord and Lomicka (2018) pointed out, language departments generally are slow to move toward integrated approaches, despite the forward momentum of specific individuals within their ranks. The practices we recommend fall under several of the standards from the World Readiness Standards for Learning Languages (National Collaborative Board, 2015), notably the “Connections” standard which requires language learners at all levels to “...build, reinforce, and expand their knowledge of other disciplines while using the language to develop critical thinking and to solve problems creatively”(p. 1 in the summary) as well as to “... access and evaluate information and diverse perspectives that are available through the language and its cultures.” This article lays out a pedagogical example designed by Jacob Abell, co-author of this article and graduate student instructor of a second semester French course. Abell’s two-day sequence of instructional activities centered on the Haitian play“Le fils du tapissier: épisode de la vie de Molière” [The Upholsterer’s Son: Episode from the Life of Molière](Moravia, 1923), integrated his own professional interest in theater, and enlivened a required textbook-based unit on the theme of labor and work. Students engaged with a comprehensible excerpt of the text, experiencing in t

FAQs

What is the paper’s focus within the World Readiness Standards for Learning Languages?

It focuses on “Connections,” using drama-based pedagogy to help introductory learners interact with culturally diverse authentic texts.

How does the proposed approach handle limits created by an established curriculum?

It builds a two-day instructional sequence embedded in the grammar and vocabulary from the assigned textbook chapter while aligning with the unit’s communicative goals.

How does the activity connect literature study to students’ proficiency needs?

It uses students’ engagement with Moravia’s Francophone play to provide immersive, community-like interaction while consistently serving a proficiency-based classroom framework.

Oct 15, 2026

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