European plaza

French Day

French Day 2025, “Techne, Technologie”: March 21, 2025

Join us for a half-day program of interactive workshops in French! Intended for students with at least two years of experience in the language, this immersion program incorporates interactive learning techniques designed to build vocabulary and improve comprehension skills. This year’s edition focuses on the intersection of traditional crafts and new technologies in the French-speaking world. Workshops will center around chocolate production, African music, translation and AI, and much more.

Detailed program and registration information will be available here by the second week of November. Please register as soon as possible and no later than February 14. Space is limited and confirmed on a “first come, first served” basis.


French Day 2025 Schedule

9:00-9:15 AM: Welcoming remarks and logistics
9:30-10:20 AM and 10:30-11:20 AM: Workshops
11:20-12:10 PM: Lunch
12:15-1:30 PM: Film Competition (see description below).


2025 Workshops (coming soon)


Professional Development

Teachers may enroll for 3 credits of Professional Development on the registration form.


Film Competition

Spring 2025’s competitive events will consist of two ways for students to engage with French language and culture while treating issues of tradition and modernity: “Tableaux vivants” is geared toward advanced secondary-school students and “La Poésie en images” for beginning and intermediate students.

Prizes will be attributed to the strongest submissions in both categories and screened during the afternoon session.


Tableaux vivants (for Advanced Students)

Riffing on “tableaux vivants”—a late nineteenth-century parlor game and twenty-first-century Instagram challenge (@tussenkunstenquarantaine), participants will bring life to a painting dealing with tradition and modernity and produced by a French-speaking artist. This involves writing a scenario and dialogue based on the characters and tensions represented in the painting. The filmed performance of this “living painting” should last no more than 5 minutes, including credits. Good sources for selecting French paintings include the Musée d’Orsay, the Centre Pompidou, the Museum of Modern Art, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, among many others.

View the “Tableaux vivants” submission form for more details and registration information. Submissions are due before March 3.

La Poésie en images (for Beginning and Intermediate Students)

Individuals or teams of students should select a poem written in French in which the central tension involves considerations of tradition and modernity. They should create a filmed adaptation of that work (no more than 3 minutes including credits). Feel free to use still images, animation, or live action (people, puppets, animals, paper cut-outs, etc). Wheaton College’s “Vive Voix” site [https://wheatoncollege.edu/vive-voix/] provides a selection of poems with accompanying readings and the Morgan Library’s online Blaise Cendrars exhibition may provide some ideas about tensions between tradition and modernity: https://www.themorgan.org/exhibitions/blaise-cendrars

View the “Poésie en images” submission form for more details and registration information. Submissions are due by March 3.

For more information or questions about French Day 2025: msufrenchday@gmail.com).


Archived French Day Programs

French-Day 2024
French Day 2022
French Day 2020
French Day 2019
French Day 2018
French Day 2017