Funding Opportunities

Undergraduate Students

Martin-Turrill Prizes

The Martin-Turrill prizes, created to honor two alumnae sisters, are distributed each year to French Majors recognizing the best French essay and the best majors. Essays written from the Spring quarter of the preceding year may be submitted for the French Essay Prize by French Majors. At the end of each academic year, the Prize Committee will select one outstanding essay from among the essays submitted. The best majors are nominated by faculty members. For information, please contact an undergraduate adviser.

Undergraduate Education Abroad Awards

The Department of French encourages students who are going to France with EAP to take advantage of the Department sponsored Education Abroad Program Awards. We offer each year a number of awards to students going to France for the first time. For information, please contact a departmental undergraduate adviser.

Graduate Students

The Department of French and Francophone Studies makes every effort to provide its graduate students with financial support during their years in residence. This support may be in the form of fellowships, stipends, tuition waivers, registration fee grants, nonresident tuition fellowships, research assistantships and/or teaching assistantships. In most cases, degree candidates entering with some form of financial aid receive continuous support for four years, provided that they show a satisfactory academic record and timely progress toward the degree. Students advanced to candidacy may receive additional support for their dissertation writing under the same conditions.

The department actively assists students in seeking out nondepartmental sources of financial aid, by keeping on file up-to-date information concerning outside sources of support for French and Francophone studies as well as a cumulative list of various fellowship opportunities. Each year several eligible students are selected as departmental nominees to compete for specific campus-wide fellowships. The Graduate Division publishes a Graduate Student Support list cataloguing fellowships for Graduate students and recent doctoral graduates. Interested students can access it on the web or contact the Student Affairs Office concerning eligibility, application procedures, and deadlines. In general, students should be aware that a number of funding sources within and outside the Department exist and that additional information is readily available on campus. Some highlights:

Research Assistantships

Teaching Positions

Occasionally available for the UCLA Summer Sessions or for the Continuing Education Program of the UCLA Extension division. Interested students should contact the department Chair.

Grants and Financial Aid Programs

UCLA has a variety of grants and financial aid programs for new and continuing students, such as the Work Study Research Internship Program. Details can be obtained from the Financial Aid Office (A-129 Murphy, 206-0414), the Graduate Student Support Office (1228 Murphy, 825-1025), or the Special Fellowships Office (1252 Murphy, 825-3521) which keeps information on available funding from sources such as alumni organizations, women's organizations, scholarly organizations, state and federal agencies, and private foundations. GRAPES, an online database of scholarships, grants, and other forms of support maintained by the UCLA Graduate Division, is another excellent source of information.

The Graduate Students' Association (GSA)

The GSA, along with other forms of support, awards to Ph.D. students who are advanced to candidacy grants equal to one-half of the registration fees. Further details are available at the GSA Office (301 Kerckhoff, 206-8512).

Teaching Assistantships

Most graduate students receive teaching assistantships in UCLA's French Language program. The following section provides some relevant information concerning the pedagogical development of TAs and their teaching activities. For more details, consult The Teaching Assistantship in French at UCLA.

Teaching assistantships provide direct experience in teaching at the undergraduate level. The department is strongly committed to its distinguished tradition of providing its graduate students with professional training in language teaching. TAs are closely supervised in all aspects of their teaching responsibilities.

New TAs participate in a week-long orientation held before the beginning of Fall classes, including an all day campus-wide workshop for foreign language TAs sponsored by the Office of Instructional Development. In addition, they are required to enroll in French 495 (Teaching French at College Level), in which they learn the theory and practice of Communicative language teaching, including the use of technology in the classroom. An integral component of FR-495 is daily attendance of a pilot or demonstration class which helps new TAs plan their next day's lesson. A TA consultant (TAC), an experienced French TA, assists with FR-495 and helps new TAs with exam preparation, grading, videotaping of their courses, the use of technology, and adjustment to the dual role of scholar-teacher. The TAC conducts the initial visitation of each TA's class and provides constructive feedback. TAs should not hesitate to meet with the TAC whenever they have questions related to teaching, grading, discipline or balancing teaching with their own course demands. In addition, the French Graduate Students' Association has established a mentorship system which links new and experienced TAs and graduate students. New TAs are normally assigned to teach beginning French courses.

Continuing TA development is provided through concurrent enrollment in French 375, which includes a pilot class available for all TAs teaching a new course, class visitations by faculty, course-specific meetings, and lectures related to the discipline of second language acquisition and teaching methodology sponsored by UCLA Foreign Language Committee. TAs' linguistic and pedagogical progress is evaluated each quarter and they are encouraged to teach at progressively higher levels of the lower division French program.

The normal teaching load per quarter consists of one section of a multiple-section course, which entails five class preparations and meetings per week. Syllabi, tests, videotaping, and staff meetings are organized by the lead course instructor, a French lecturer. A number of Teaching Assistantships are also available each year for undergraduate literature or civilization classes, and advanced TAs who are selected to teach them are given the opportunity to work closely with the faculty member in charge of the class, from whom they receive training and supervision. Students advanced to candidacy can propose to teach a course based on their doctoral research through the Collegium of University Teaching Fellows.

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