By Noah Bond
French attach? Alain-Marc Rieu will thank BYU Tuesday, Dec. 11 for producing a CD designed to teach French to 5,500 Olympic volunteers.
Rieu will meet with President Merrill J. Bateman to express appreciation for the production of this CD, said Mike Bush, director of the national security education program project.
While at BYU, Rieu will have lunch with the chair of the French and Italian Department and the BYU public affairs director, Bush said.
At a banquet, Rieu will also thank 20 BYU students for their important contributions to the production of this French language CD, Bush said.
'This CD will help welcome those French-speaking people to Salt Lake,' he said.
The project began in May when BYU was asked by the French government to produce an interactive CD-ROM that could teach English speaking Olympic volunteers the French language, said Margaret Merrill, the project manager for the production of the French language CD-ROM.
When BYU accepted to take on the project, the France Ministry of Foreign Affairs agreed to fund the project with $43,000, Merrill said.
Production of the CD was completed almost entirely by BYU students, she said.
French teaching majors, Heather Young and Jessica Morris, worked as research assistants on the project.
'It was our responsibility to make a curriculum capable of teaching basic French skills needed for Olympics volunteers,' Young said.
The CD-ROM was produced to teach basic French language skills to non-French speaking Olympic volunteers, she said.
Most of the lessons on the CD are structured around pictures and interviews with the actual French Olympians, Young said.
BYU students in France on ORCA Grants interviewed French Olympic athletes expected to compete in the Salt Lake 2002 Games, Merrill said.
Footage from the French Olympic athletes have been used to facilitate Olympic volunteers as they learn from the CD, she said.
The CD-ROM is made up of several different lessons, which use pictures and audio bits to teach the French language in a clear and understandable way, Merrill said.
After Olympic volunteers have used the CD, they should be able to give directions, tell the time and serve different foods to French-speaking visitors, Young said.
It is important that Olympic volunteers know how to speak French because this is one of the official languages for the Salt Lake 2002 Games, Merrill said.