The Foreign Language Association of Virginia
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AWARDS

FLAVA Awards!

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Awards and Award Recipients 2007

The FLAVA Executive Board in 2007 voted to rename the FLAVA Awards to honor three of Virginia's long-standing and highly influential members. The K-12 award is now posthumously named the David Cox Excellence in Teaching K-12 Award, the post-secondary award will heretofore be the Marshall Brannon FLAVA Excellence in Teaching Post-Secondary Award, and for distinguished service we now have the Helen Warriner-Burke FLAVA Distinguished Service Award. We look forward to awarding these latter two in 2008 with Mr. Brannon and Mrs. Warriner Burke presenting to the winners.




Linda_Davidson (4K)The 2007 recipient of the David Cox Excellence in Teaching K-12 Award is Linda B. Davidson from James River High School, in Chesterfield County Public Schools and member of FLAVA since 1975. After receiving her BA in French from the College of William and Mary in 1971, she earned two masters degrees (University of Richmond, 1976; Middlebury College, 1990). For thirty of her thirty-seven years of teaching, Madame Davidson has been a department chair.

She has won several impressive honors, from Chesterfield County, from the Howard Blackmond Outstanding Language Teacher Award in 1989, to an NEH Study Abroad Scholarship in 1991, to a UVA Visiting Scholar post in Avignon in 1992 and an REB Award to France in 1993. Her excellence in scholarship and her commitment to improving her own skills have translated into the high achievement of her students: every year the Governor's French Academy accepts her best students and all her French AP students -- 100% -- consistently score at a 3 or better.

She is the co-founder, with Debbie Bartle, of the annual Richmond area Congrès Français. For younger learners, over the last thirteen years, Mrs. Davidson has supervised the FLEX program at Bettie Weaver Elementary School in Chesterfield County. Linda has been helping recently plan and execute the French immersion weekend for teachers with the DOE and the AATF.

Sans aucun doute, her service and dedication to foreign language education in Virginia warrants our recognition and praise. Congratulations, Linda!




Emilio_Peiro (6K)The FLAVA Business and Industry Award this year was presented to Emilio Peiro of Emilio's Restaurante Español. His first restaurant, Emilio's Downtown/Fan, at 1847 W. Broad Street (corner of Broad and Meadow), was Richmond's first Spanish restaurant, where he proudly brought the cuisine and culture of his native Spain to central Virginia. He has now opened a second establishment, Emilio's Woodlake, at 7016 Woodlake Commons Loop, in Midlothian off Hull Street.

Dr. Christopher Little of Collegiate School who nominated Mr. Peiro commends him on the "extraordinary support" he has given to the DOE and AATSP immersion weekends for Virginia's Spanish teachers. He blends food, Flamenco and fun to serve up an unforgettable learning experience for our colleagues. Mr. Peiro is generous with his time and his knowledge throughout Richmond, working tirelessly with the Hispanic community, especially musicians and soccer teams.




Sadly, the other two FLAVA Awards, for Teaching Post-Secondary and Distinguished Service. had no nominations but not for lack of outstanding language educators in our midst.




Judith_Shrum (13K)We had a moment of silence for our colleagues who passed this year : it was a year of many and great losses for our community. In honor of our Virginia Tech colleagues who died so tragically, FLAVA has established the annual awarding of a one year FLAVA membership and conference admission for the Tech students receiving the James Bishop and Joycelyne Couture-Nowak Scholarships that year. The students will be honored for their academic achievement at our conference. Dr. Judith Shrum graciously accepted the FLAVA donation.




Best of FLAVA 2007

Determined by evaluations turned in at the end of the conference, we honor two of our presenters as the best presentations at FLAVA. One will go to NECTFL and one to SCOLT in the spring of 2008, representing FLAVA and presenting their sessions there. The session descriptions from the conference program are below. Our congratulations to Cindie and Fabrice!




Fabrice Teulon
Virginia Tech

L'orthographe, à qui bon!

Orthography occupies a unique place in French culture. Far from being a question of interest for only linguists and teachers, it finds itself at the very center of political, societal, and cultural debates. This presentation will address some of the issues raised by the proponents and by the opponents of reforms of French orthography. (presented in French)




Cindie Kelley
Massaponax High School, Spotsylvania County Public Schools

Creating Digital Stories

Need a new project for class that will keep you students active and interested? Today's students are used to technology and the opportunities that it offers. Train DaFer Cindie will demonstrate how students can use Photostory to create story presentations. Materials were provided.