After a successful Teaching Assistantship during her Master’s degree at UBC, Sylvia Bascou-Vallarino was offered a Sessional Lecturer position in French and Spanish at UBC in 2001—a position that she held until 2018, when she accepted a new role as Lecturer of French. Upon her retirement, Sylvia Bascou-Vallarino reflects on the most memorable moments of her 23 years working at the Department of French, Hispanic and Italian Studies (FHIS).
“What I will miss the most is the opportunity to be part of my students' careers as learners, and part of a community of teachers with the same values.”
What were the most memorable moments of your career?
The most memorable moment of my career was receiving the 2021-2022 Killam Teaching Prize that rewarded my years of work developing online resources that support student self-learning and better class time-management through the use of classroom technology. The Killam Teaching Prize also recognized my work in developing the first course in the French program to include an experiential component: “FREN 346: French at Work”.
No less memorable, however, were those moments when a student would go on exchange in Paris thanks to the encouragement they received in my French class, or when a student would thank me for a lecture that now enabled them to answer a question in a History or Geography course.
What I will miss the most is having daily contact with students and the opportunity to be part of their careers as learners, as well as being part of a community of teachers with the same values.
What do you consider your greatest achievement?
An award given to Sylvia by a former student who is now one of the five bilingual Judges at the BC Provincial Court.
The projects I am most proud of were the development of two new courses: “SPAN 308: Spanish for Business” and “FREN 346: French at Work”.
SPAN 308, as I conceived it, gives students the opportunity to analyze and discuss real historical business cases.
FREN 346 has an experiential component that allows students to do a 20-hour internship at a French company or NGO. In order to offer the students experiences outside the classroom, I had to look for opportunities within the French community. It was very rewarding to see interest from not only the students, but also from the French-speaking community, contributing to the success of the course.
What impact do you hope to have made?
Sylvia Bascou-Vallarino during the Killam Teaching Prize award ceremony (2022).
“I hope to have diversified and planted the seed for experiential learning components in French courses.”
For my students: I hope to have helped them understand that a second language is a tool that will open as many doors as they wish, and that what makes their resume outstanding is the number of languages they speak.
For the department: I hope to have diversified and planted the seed for experiential learning components in French courses, creating partnerships that would enable students to learn, while working in the French community. I also hope to have contributed to the use of the tablet as a pedagogical tool in language classes by representing FHIS at conferences and workshops.
For my colleagues: I hope to have encouraged them to incorporate technology in the classroom (such as when I presented on “How to use a Tablet PC in a Language Course” at conferences and symposiums), and to maintain a respectful work environment beyond hierarchy.
For academia: I hope to have demonstrated the importance of valuing the work of Lecturers as key players in the development of linguistic skills that will enable students to access a higher level of study.
What are your plans after retirement?
Travelling and discovering different cultures has always been a great source of pleasure, and I now hope to include my grandchildren in that journey. After teaching, translating and watercolour-painting have always been activities that I wished I had more time to spend on, so I look forward to enjoying both.
Any parting words for the UBC community?
To my dear colleagues, the new ones that I didn’t have the time to know better and the ones with whom I shared 23 years of work, I wish you all the best in your careers at the Department of French, Hispanic and Italian Studies (FHIS). UBC is a great place to work and a great source of inspiration. I would like to thank those at FHIS for trusting and understanding what Sessionals and Lecturers bring to the department and its students.
I would also like to thank the Arts Instructional Support and Information Technology unit (Arts ISIT) for giving me the opportunity to develop the skills to include technology in the classroom as early as 2003. That was a big step in my career as a language teacher, for it gave me the opportunity to share my experiences and findings at conferences.
