Désirée Pries
Lecturer and Second Year Language Coordinator

Désirée Pries is responsible for the coordination of the second-year language program. She teaches undergraduate language, literature, and practical phonetics classes and the advanced graduate seminar on pedagogy (teaching language, literature, composition, and using technology in the classroom). Her interests include French and Francophone women writing, gender studies, the novel, film, and applied linguistics. Her past and on-going projects have focused on the contemporary Belgian writer Amelie Nothomb and computer-assisted language learning materials development: for example, uniting culture and listening comprehension through technology, as well as uniting instructors-in-training in French as a second and/or foreign language with students of French. Her recent projects include revising approaches to foreign langauge teaching in the 21st century, the development of multiple competences and literacies in language learning and an operational approach to the 2007 MLA report,the integration of advanced grammar review with the study of literature, film and current events, synchronous online communication across continents in the classroom, and the use (and misuse) of technology in the classroom. In addition to contributing to the ongoing professional training of instructors in the UC Berkeley French department, she is currently part of a team training Masters students in Lyon, France to teach French as a Second or Foreign Language, and works with Berkeley undergraduate and graduate students in this project.