People
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Gilberte Furstenberg née Codaccioni Senior Lecturer, French gfursten@mit.edu more contact info | |
Gilberte Furstenberg was born and educated in France where she received her Agregation. She taught English at the University of Paris-Nanterre, then moved to the United States where she became a correspondent for the French news magazine L'Express. Her next career move brought her to M.I.T. where she has been (1) teaching French language and culture for the last thirty years, and (2) developing innovating multimedia and web-based materials for fostering students’ active, experiential linguistic and cultural learning within authentic contexts.
She uses these materials and others in her courses, making use of authentic print, video and multimedia materials from the very beginning to the advanced levels, in order to fully integrate culture into the language curriculum. She also favors a cross-cultural approach to the study of materials, as a way of accessing the different underlying values in French and American cultures.
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Her research interests lie in the development of interactive multimedia programs for learning French and developing an understanding of its culture. She is the principal author of A la Rencontre de Philippe (http://web.mit.edu/fll/www/projects/Philippe.shtml), a pioneering interactive fiction, Dans un quartier de Paris (http://web.mit.edu/fll/www/projects/Quartier.shtml), an interactive multimedia documentary which have both won national and international awards. A la Rencontre de Philippe, initially published in videodisc format by Yale University Press, has been redesigned as a CD-ROM and is currently published by CLE Int. in Paris. For the last ten years, she has been involved, along with Sabine Levet and Shoggy Waryn, in the development of a Web-based intercultural project, entitled Cultura (http://cultura.mit.edu/) which provides a unique comparative approach for developing in-depth understanding of another culture. |
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Portrait
She has given numerous presentations, lectures and workshops in the U.S. and abroad, focusing on (1) the many uses of multimedia as well as the place of intercultural communication in the foreign language curriculum, and (2) the subsequent new emerging role of the foreign language teacher. She is the author of pedagogical guides, articles, and chapters in books.
