Joel C. Walz

Announcement

I retired effective July 1, 2004 and moved to Easthampton, Massachhusetts. I will continue to use e-mail at my current address.

I am Professor of French (Emeritus) in the Department of Romance Languages at the University of Georgia. I received the B.A. in French from the University of North Carolina and the M.A. and Ph.D. from Indiana University. In 1975 I completed my dissertation in the field of French linguistics under the direction of Albert Valdman. From 1975 to 1977, I was Instructor of French in the Department of Romance Languages at the Ohio State University.

In 1977, I moved to the University of Georgia as Assistant Professor of French.

Teaching

From 1979 to 1996, my main teaching assignment was the supervision of graduate teaching assistants in French. This involved training new graduate students in college-level foreign-language teaching, planning and implementing the instructional program of the first five courses in French, coordinating the testing of students, observing teachers, teaching a methods course, and handling student problems.

Research

I have conducted research throughout my career in three areas: pedagogy, applied linguistics, and phonetics. The results of this research are books, articles in journals, and talks at professional meetings.

My proudest achievement (since it combines all areas of my research as well as my teaching) is the first-year college French textbook, Rapports: Language, Culture, Communication, which I co-authored with my colleague, Jean-Pierre Piriou, and which is in its fifth edition (Houghton Mifflin). Innovations throughout the various editions have included a reduced grammar base, combining a (primarily) grammatical approach with notions and functions, at least one activity with an authentic cultural context for every structure taught, and extensive use of the World Wide Web.

My other research interests have been organized around the French language and how descriptions of the language can make learning easier. In 2002, I collaborated with three applied linguists on a festschrift to honor Albert Valdman. We presented it to him in late August, 2002. The Spring, 2004 issue of Foreign Language Annals has an article by the GSTEP Committee in which I participated.

Service

I have performed several important service functions over the years:

Supervisor of the elementary French sequence (1979-96)
Moderator of Pi Delta Phi (1978-90)
Convener of the Athens-Area Academic Alliance (1986-95)
Member and Chair of the Applied Linguistics Division, MLA
AATF Committee on Professional Standards for Teachers
AAUSC Section Head for French; I also developed the policy on the hiring and promotion of LPDs
Four summer seminars for high school French teachers (Two in Athens, two in France)
A three-year (1996-1999) assignment as Associate Head of the Department. The position involved staffing all lower division courses in the four languages we teach and chairing the Supervisors Committee, which establishes teaching programs and policies. In the summer, I performed all the service duties of the department.
I represent the University of Georgia on the Academic Advisory Committee for Foreign Languages of the Board of Regents. I chaired the 2004 meeting.

Personal

I was born in Nashua, NH. When I was one and a half, we moved to my father's home town of Easthampton, MA, where I now live (after a 50-year absence!). When I was seven and a half, we moved to Asheville, NC, and I stayed until leaving for college.

In Athens, I lived in Beechwood Hills, a subdivision about three and one-half miles west of the UGA campus. In the summer of 2004 I returned to Massachusetts. My hobbies are fishing (now ice fishing!), collecting postcards, and buying stuff on eBay.

My Favorite Web Sites:

If you are tired of commercial phone calls at home, click here.
If you would like to contribute money to a worthy cause, click here.
For the Duke of URLs, click here.
Got those Blue Mountain blues (don't want to pay to send e-mail greeting cards)? Try e-cards, Yahoo! Greetings, or Hallmark.
Thinking of buying something on the Internet? Click here first.
Need a form to do your income taxes? Federal State
Need a cheap flight? Orbitz, Travelocity, Expedia.
Need to be sure of a parking space when you get to the airport? Click here.
Need to look up a word? Merriam Webster American Heritage.
Need a laugh? Click here.
To find a business anywhere in the US and a map to get to it, click here.
To find a map to a home anywhere in the US, click here.
To find somebody's phone number, click here for the US, here for France, here for elsewhere in the world.
Have a phone number and want to know who it belongs to? Click here.
Need to know what that clunker you are driving is worth? Try Kelley Blue Book or Edmunds.
Need a zip code? Click here for the US, here for France, here for Canada, here for the rest of the world.
Want to know how much it costs to mail something from the U.S.? Click here.
Want to listen to radio on the Internet? Click here.
Need a weather report for anywhere in the US? Click here.
To find the current time anywhere in the world, click here.
For accurate time, and I mean REALLY accurate, click here.
Want to find out something about a movie? Click here.
Does Life sometimes make you think you're just floundering? Click here.
Want to see if you still have time to order a pizza? Click here.

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This page was created by Joel Walz (JWALZ@UGA.EDU)