KAILEE COURTS
Staff Reporter | kec029@latech.edu
A professor at Louisiana Tech has added another accomplishment to her resume by publishing her second book.
Dolliann Hurtig, assistant professor of modern language at Louisiana Tech, published her second French based book “Allons au Cinema: Promoting French through Films Volume Two.”
Hurtig said most people like to watch films so it is easy to choose French films that are interesting and help people study the language more.
“The book is to promote the French language through films,” Hurtig said. “Cinema is an agreeable way to learn more about the language.”
Hurtig said she and the book’s assistant editor, Joyce Beckwith, placed a call for contributors in the national bulletin for the American Association for Teachers of French.
The authors chose films from different French-speaking countries to view and add to the book.
“We added more countries to the list for this book,” Hurtig said. “There are films from France, Canada, Africa and Belgium, just to name a few.”
She said the authors added three animated films to appeal to middle school students.
“Our goal is to promote the language,” Hurtig said. “We hope that, after seeing these films ,students will want to learn more.”
Hurtig said the whole process took a total of three years.
“This was really a labor of love,” she said. “I gave up major holidays to devote to editing and finishing this book.”
Hurtig said she spoke with Beckwith once a week for a minimum of an hour to make sure everything was going smoothly.
“It is always fun working with the authors,” she said. “Communicating with them throughout the process was one of the highlights of making the book.”
Hurtig said another highlight was being able to speak at a national convention about the book.
During the convention for French professors,Hurtig, Beckwith and ten of the other authors were able to give three-hour presentation about”Allons au Cinema.”
“We were able to get most of the authors to fly in for the presentation,” she said. “It was an honor to be able to give a presentation on something we worked hard for.”
Hurtig said there is already a third film book in the works.
“This new book will have a theme, which is different than the first two,” she said.
The third book will be titled “L’idetite de l’immigration et nous,” which translates to “Immigration Identity and Us.”
“We are very excited to have our second book published and to already be thinking of the third.”