USC professor tweets to knighthood Accelerated Learning Resources

USC professor tweets to knighthood

COLUMBIA — The use of social media to teach and promote French has earned a University of South Carolina associate professor knighthood by the French government.

Dr. Lara Lomicka Anderson, a faculty member in the College of Arts and Sciences, has been honored by France’s Ministry of Education with the Chevalier dans lordre des Palmes Academiques

The order was established by Napoleon Bonaparte and is one of the world’s oldest orders of knighthood. It recognizes significant academic contributions to the study and advancement of the French language.

Anderson uses sites like Twitter, Facebook and Skype to encourage her students to practice their French.

“One way I do that is through a partnership with a school in France located outside of Paris, and we use all of these technologies to promote a collaborative partnership among students,” says Anderson.

Anderson pairs each of her students with a French-speaking partner whom they communicate with during the course of a year. In the spring, Anderson’s class travels to France to meeting their new friends.

She adds social media has opened up the lines of communication and built a sense of community within the classroom.

Anderson will be knighted and honored with a medallion during a visit by the consul general this fall.

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