News Photo by Crystal Nelson Posen High School students interact with Alpena Community College French instructor Stephanie Prince on Monday in Posen.

POSEN — Posen Consolidated Schools has come up with a new approach to make learning a foreign language available to high school students.

The school district has partnered with Alpena Community College to offer French as a remote learning experience and dual enrollment course, through which students are also able to earn college credit.

Superintendent and K-12 Principal Michelle Wesner said the school has had foreign language teachers in the past and has been able to offer foreign language classes online.

However, this is the first year the school district has been able to offer a foreign language using videoconferencing technology. Students sit in their classroom in Posen and watch their French instructor, Stephanie Prince, teach the class from her ACC classroom.

Wesner said “smart technology” is used in the classroom, which allows a video camera to automatically zoom in on a student when he or she is talking to their instructor.

Wesner said district officials were planning to offer the course before the coronavirus pandemic began in March.

The videoconferencing software was purchased as part of a $500,000 grant ACC received from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. It bought the two 64-inch monitors and the “smart technology” cameras.

Wesner said the state requires students to have a full year of foreign language to graduate high school. Students take the class Mondays through Thursdays, and use Fridays as study time for the course.

Wesner said foreign language helps students understand the world around them and helps “broaden their horizons.”

“The way they see things that are going on helps them to make connections with what they see on the news — things that are happening in other places,” she said. “If they understand that the world is more than just our little area, you build empathy for others that way.”

Although there were some tech issues on the very first day, junior Leah Themel said she has been enjoying the class so far.

“I was kind of concerned at the beginning that I wouldn’t get it much, because it wasn’t in-person, but she does an amazing job with it,” Themel said. “She has us repeat a lot of the stuff back to her and she speaks in French quite often, so she’s really trying to get us to understand how to pronounce things and understand how things sound before forcing us into saying a word.”

Twenty students have enrolled in the French I class this fall, and Wesner said she expects students to take the second semester of French in the spring. Wesner said students have learned many of the basic words and are able to pick those words out of sentences

Students are also learning about French history as part of the course.

Wesner said students are still able to take other foreign languages, such as Spanish or German, online, but school administrators are really trying to limit online foreign language courses this year because they are limiting electives during the coronavirus pandemic.

Crystal Nelson can be reached at 989-358-5687 or cnelson@thealpenanews.com.