The neat pods of desks invite students into the brightly colored French class of room 237. Inside sits students eagerly waiting to work on an interactive activity put together by Ms. Amy Roznos. The French program is one of three foreign language courses available at any high school grade level in the Francis Howell School District and it also allows students to take more Advanced Placement courses. French teacher Amy Roznos has revamped the French program to make it more exciting and enjoyable for incoming and returning French students.

“I guess when I went to school, I did lots of worksheets and we still do worksheets in class sometimes, but they aren’t as fun to me and I also want language class to be more like what you might see in real life, so giving students situations instead of of just busy work seems better,” Ms. Roznos said.

In regards to curriculum, the French program throughout the Francis Howell School District shares curriculum with the other foreign languages.

“All the foreign languages throughout the district share a curriculum for levels one through three and we just this year redid level four and five curricula and that will start next year,” Ms. Roznos said.

However, redoing the curriculum does bring about stress to those who are fixing it.

“It was really fast, because we did it in a day and half. But it was nice because I think that all the teachers that got together kind of knew what they wanted – to make everything real world, things that are going to make things useful for students,” Madame Roznos said.

Ms. Roznos has always wanted interactive classes for her students,

“I guess from the beginning is when I decided to have it that way. But, I will say it’s not always fun and interactive, I think most of the teachers here are working on making things better so sometimes making an interactive activity is a little more work than just printing off a worksheet; sometimes because of the struggle I deal with I feel like I’m working to a lot to make things good but as long as it ends well for the students that’s what’s most important,” Ms. Roznos said.

Sophomore Pre-AP French 3 student Carissa Carron expressed her enjoyment of the Pre-AP class.

“I love it, [French] is super easy and super fun especially since Mrs. Roznos is super fun, really chill and if you miss a day or something, she helps you to make up work and she explains it all really well,” Carron said.

The activities provided to students from Madame Roznos are to help the students learn, work and be engaged while having fun.

“They’re super familiar, hands-on activities and she does a lot to put them together for us. It helps make the vocab easier to learn and I’ve never had any problems with any of them,” Carron said.

Carron believes that as you move up a grade the work gets harder, but the activities get more fun.

“As you learn more [French vocab] in the class, more is expected of you but, I know it’s challenging but it’s really fun and I kind of want to get better at it; I want to be able to read a whole book in French but before that I was just hoping that I’d get better at vocab,” Carron said.

French IV student and junior Samantha Wilson praised the French program and Ms.Roznos for the programs engaging student activities.

“There’s not a lot of work involved and when there is, it doesn’t feel like you’re doing a lot of the work and you’re just doing the minimal stuff,” Wilson said.

Unlike Carron’s views, Wilson thinks that the work given the work gets more effortless when you move up a grade level.

“It’s suddenly gotten easier because as you get higher up in grade level and then you know more stuff and it’s a lot less filling out papers, it’s more of applying what you know,” Wilson said.

Wilson believes Madame Roznos’ way of work is more effective and efficient at teaching students than that of other ways of working towards learning a new language.

“It’s a lot better than middle school because again, it doesn’t feel like you’re actually doing the work, you’re just applying what you know,” Wilson said.

Wilson appreciates the work Madame Roznos puts into her classes, lessons and looks up to her.

“Mrs. Roznos is super nice and she is such an amazing teacher to learn from. I’ve really enjoyed learning from her for the past three years,” Wilson said.