UW in the High School (UWHS) lets high school students take University of Washington courses in their own classroom, with their own teachers who are trained and mentored by UW faculty. As a dual credit program, UWHS enables students to simultaneously earn college and high school credit, giving themselves a head start on college.
It’s been a season of firsts for UWHS. In the autumn of 2023, thousands of public high school students across Washington could earn college credit at no cost, thanks to a new Washington state law. This game-changing legislation is opening the door to higher education for everyone, causing another unprecedented development — a spike in UWHS enrollment, which increased enrollment by more than 50% over the same period last year.
The UWHS staff and the UW faculty who manage the UWHS program aren’t letting the extraordinary advancements stop there. They’re carrying that momentum forward to create programming that provides the ambitious high school students enrolled in their classes with new challenges and opportunities.
Through implementing the immersive conversation platform Boomalang into the curriculums of the UWHS French classes offered at 13 different Washington high schools, UW French professor and UWHS faculty coordinator Hedwige Meyer has done exactly that. By allowing high school students to connect and practice French with native speakers around the globe, she and the high school teachers are teaching students to communicate in a new language and transforming the classroom into a space where students can collaborate, think critically and broaden their minds.
THE CONFIDENCE TO ENGAGE
If there’s anyone who knows their French education at the University of Washington, it’s Professor Hedwige Meyer. After all, she’s literally written the book on it, serving as co-author on the American edition of Défi Francophone and Rond-Point as well as authoring several French workbooks. Not to mention, she has a 32-year tenure teaching courses full-time in the French and Italian Studies department. And she’s among the three longest-running UW faculty members with UWHS, collaborating with the program to bring college French classes to local high schools for an impressive 20 years.
My students have enjoyed the experience...They appreciate talking to regular, real-world people and hearing a live conversation that is not scripted or book-like.
— Annaick Sturgeon, UWHS French Teacher, Ballard High School
However, after many decades of watching students approach oral exam day with trembling voices and sweaty palms, she determined there had to be a better way to measure their capabilities. Hedwige found the answer in Boomalang, an online video-conferencing platform that allows students to practice French with an international team of speakers trained to guide 15-to-30-minute discussions. Better yet, the UWHS program budget covers all the fees associated with Boomalang, allowing all schools and students to use the platform’s services at no cost.
“I figured that there was more value in having a number of conversations with a French-speaking person, rather than a test once a quarter,” says Hedwige. “If I want to see how a student is doing and what they’re able to say, talking to someone in real-time is the ultimate test. I launch students into a conversation with a native speaker and see how they manage.”
Hedwige first implemented Boomalang into her UW French courses and then incorporated the component into all UWHS French classes, ensuring alignment between the courses on campus and in high school. While the performance jitters haven’t gone away, the vibe in the classroom has changed.
After selecting a speaker with their teacher, the students prepare for the meetings with anticipation, studying the backgrounds of the speaker and equipping themselves with a handful of questions related to the person’s career or schooling. They then rotate around the room, each student alternating talking with and listening to the speaker several times and learning about their life. It’s authentic experiences like these that captivate the students’ interests that have made the addition of the Boomalang to the UWHS curriculum a win.
Hedwige Meyer prepares to immerse students in French culture.
“My students have enjoyed the experience because they can't rely on speaking in English and like that someone else understands them,” says Annaick Sturgeon, who has taught UWHS French at Ballard High School in the greater Seattle area for 18 years. “They appreciate talking to regular, real-world people and hearing a live conversation that is not scripted or book-like.”
Annaick adds, that instead of being intimidated by speaking in French, her students now look forward to their second and third conversations with their Boomalang conversation partners. A phenomenon Hedwige is excited to see replicated across UWHS French classrooms. “The students realize that they understand what the speaker is saying, and realize they have the skills to address a native speaker,” she says. “It’s a confidence-building activity, and it gives them motivation to talk to these partners.”
EXPLORING A NEW CULTURE WITHOUT LEAVING THE CLASSROOM
However, what’s best of all is that these conversations on Boomalang go beyond improving the students’ French speaking skills and boosting their confidence in class. Speaking with people around the globe gives UWHS students a new perspective on French culture.
Hedwige explains the beauty of these conversations is they expose students to the various French-speaking countries. Knowledge that’s particularly important these days when the majority of Francophone people do not live in France or come from France.
These interactions are great for the student’s conversational skills, but it also introduces them to the cultural aspect of the French speaking world.
— Hedwige, French Professor, UW Department of French and Italian Studies
“These interactions are great for the student’s conversational skills, but it also introduces them to the cultural aspect of the French speaking world,” she says. “They can discover the variety of the language and the diversity of the Francophone world by conversing with French speakers from places like Quebec, Morocco, Senegal, Benin and Ivory Coast on Boomalang.”
That variety is opening up the students’ minds and inspiring them to be more curious about other people. Isabelle Kappers, a UWHS French teacher at Bishop Blanchet High School for five years, explains that her students are more interested in asking questions and getting to know the Boomalang speakers because they are not people they see or interact with daily.
“My students like the fact the speakers have different careers, go to various schools and live in different countries,” she says. “They’re new people from various horizons, and they look forward to our conversations with them because they know it’s something different.”
In many ways, these conversations have become a bridge to a new culture for UWHS students. The students are gaining a greater appreciation of French, picking up on the speakers' expressions and incorporating the new vocabulary into their daily conversations. Moreover, the UWHS classroom has become a place where students can embrace all the identities and communities in the French-speaking world. A practice that teachers hope they can continue and incorporate into other learnings.
“It’s great to give students the opportunity to practice speaking French outside of their teacher. It helps students understand the language and how to use it to interact with others. We’re talking about introducing Boomalang into our other world language classes, such as Spanish and German, in the future,” says Isabelle. “I wish when I was learning languages, I had the opportunity to stay in my classroom, speak with natives and get connected with people from all over the world.”