This study investigates whether students learn culture embedded in a video-based second language program. Beginning-level French students watched 10 videos as part of the curriculum. A pretest, administered prior to exposure to the videos, and a posttest, given at the end of the semester after exposure to the videos, assessed long-term gains in little "c" culture (practices) and big "C" culture (products). Also, postvideo viewing tests, administered immediately after each video, measured short-term retention of culture in that video. A questionnaire analyzed student perceptions of how well they learned about the foreign culture. From pre-to posttesting, results indicated significant gains in overall cultural knowledge. On the postvideo short-term retention tests, scores of little "c" items were significantly higher than scores of big "C" items. Students perceived that the videos contained more little "c" than big "C," and that they learned more little "c" information. Findings supported using video to teach culture.

This study compared a story-based video instructional package, with a feature-length film as its focus, to a text-based program. It explored the effectiveness of each approach to enhance the listening and grammar performances of intermediate-level college French students. Twenty-seven students at two institutions participated. A pretest-posttest design assessed long-term gains in listening performance and grammar performance. Results indicated that students significantly improved their listening skills and grammar knowledge when exposed to the story-based video package. For the text-based group, students did not significantly improve in listening, but they significantly improved in grammar. For grammar only, the increase in mean scores for the video-based group was significantly higher than the increase in mean scores for the text-based group. The video-based curriculum used a narrative approach to teach grammar and foster listening. Results support using a film with an engaging storyline and with embedded targeted structures as effective input to enhance linguistic performance.

This study examines the effects of video on cultural knowledge at the intermediate level. Fifty-one intermediate-level French students viewed 8 videos. A pretest/posttest design assessed long-term gains in cultural knowledge and in the learning of cultural practices and cultural products from exposure to a curriculum with a video component. Eight postvideo tests measured the students' ability to retain information and to make inferences. A questionnaire assessed perceptions of cultural learning. Results indicated a significant gain in cultural knowledge with posttest scores significantly higher than pretest scores. On the short-answer and free-recall portions of the 8 postvideo tests, the students' ability to make inferences or retain information did not improve significantly in either an advance organizer (AO) or a non-AO condition. For free recall, scores were significantly higher for mentions of cultural practices than for products. The students believed that they learned more cultural practices than products. The results support using video to enhance cultural knowledge.

This investigation examines whether foreign language (FL) students learn cultural information embedded in videos. Fifty beginning French students participated. They viewed eight targeted videos as part of their multimedia-based curriculum. A pretest and a posttest assessed long-term gains in overall cultural knowledge and in the learning of little "c" culture (practices) and big "C" culture (products). Eight postvideo tests measured short-term retention of culture in each of the eight videos. Oral dialogues tested students' ability to interact culturally appropriately in a communicative setting. A questionnaire analyzed student perceptions of cultural learning. From pre- to posttesting, results indicated a significant gain in overall cultural knowledge. Posttest scores were significantly higher than pretest scores. Pretest and posttest scores were significantly higher for little "c" than for big "C." On the postvideo tests, measuring short-term retention of culture, there was no significant difference between types of culture retained. Regarding oral performance, students performed culturally appropriately more than 60% of the time. Students perceived that the videos contained more little than big "C" culture and that they learned more little "c." Results support using video an effective technological tool for presenting culture in the FL classroom.

Marguerite de Navarre, the older sister of King Francois I, had considerable influence upon religious matters in sixteenth-century France and often shared letters from her spiritual adviser Guillaume Briconnet, Bishop of Meaux, with her brother. Through these letters written between 1521 and 1524 Briconnet and Marguerite began to urge reform of the Catholic Church, which Briconnet was attempting to propagate in his own diocese, inviting reform-minded theologians like Jacques Lefevre d'Etaples and Gerard Roussel to preach and serve there. At the same time Briconnet's letters impressed upon Marguerite the concepts of negative theology that he took from Pseudo-Dionysius, then considered to be the same person as Saint Denys, the martyred first bishop of Paris. From Briconnet and his group of theologians at Meaux, Marguerite received ideas of both contemporary Church reform and medieval Catholic mysticism that she incorporated into her written works and her own theological conceptions. In the play L'Inquisiteur Marguerite presents a theology of redemption that defies easy categorization as either Catholic or "Reformed" (that is to say, belonging to the Lutheran Reformation) and serves as the most telling explanation of her idea of what the Catholic Church and Christian faith should be.Marguerite probably wrote L'Inquisiteur in 1536. 1 At this time Marguerite provided refuge for several reformist theologians, and, as V.