Campus Connection

Art and French students team up to highlight regions of the world through cultural awareness campaign

A creative partnership between French and Art students has resulted in cultural awareness campaigns that highlight French-speaking regions of the world while preparing students with essential skills for today’s global workforce. The campaigns targeted a specific professional audience and communicated crucial information. The collaboration has given students the opportunity to gain real-world experience creating and designing campaigns through cross-disciplinary teamwork. 

Senior Hannah Hautala, an English major with a minor in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL), teamed up with UWL Senior Leah Elliott, a communication studies major, to design a poster aimed at educating young Americans about the opportunity of teaching English in Cameroon. This project, part of the French 307: Professional Communications in French and Art 308 courses, culminated in a poster exhibition that will be on display at the Language Resource Center throughout spring semester 2025. 

Hautala focused on crafting the written content, while Elliot handled the visual design of the poster. Together, they navigated the complexities of cultural communication, drawing on their distinct perspectives. 

“This taught us how to work collaboratively in professional settings and across cultures, as our class operated with a francophone perspective and the art class with an American perspective,” says Hautala. “It taught us the importance of communication, timeliness, and sharing cultural perspectives.” 

Elliott says the project provided her with experience in freelance design work. “While I have done freelance work in the past, this project strengthened my ability to collaborate with others. Communication in any type of freelance work is the most important skill to have. You must constantly convey ideas to your client to make adjustments as necessary, and to ensure that there's a definite understanding of the vision between the client and the artist,” she says. “Good communication leads to great results, and that is true for any collaborative setting.” 

Elliott aims to do freelance work in photography and videography after graduation. “Effective interpersonal communication, attention to detail, and organization are all skills I have learned from this project that will be helpful for my future practice. I'm grateful to have had such a positive experience for this project!,” she says.  

Q & A

In the following Q&A, Hautala shares her insights on the research process, the challenges she encountered, and how the study of French is shaping her future career aspirations. 

Q: Why did you focus on this particular campaign: educating young Americans about the opportunity of teaching English in Cameroon? 

I focused on this because of my Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) minor as well as my career goals to teach English abroad. I chose Cameroon to challenge myself and expand my world and cultural knowledge. I've learned about different places in Europe and even visited some before, but I'd never heard much about or even considered Cameroon. 

Cameroon also fit the goals of my Cultural Awareness Campaign, which was addressed to young Americans who speak both English and French. Because of its bilingual status and the need for teachers who are aware of anglophone and francophone cultures, the country made sense as the focus of my campaign.  

Q: What stood out to you the most? 

The thing that stood out to me the most was the linguistic conflict that has existed in the country for decades. Because of colonization, Cameroon has an anglophone region and a francophone region. But while the country claims to be one that values bilingualism, opportunities for anglophones (English-speaking people) in the country are very limited. This linguistic oppression has caused tension, with many from the anglophone region wanting to secede from Cameroon. The result is a civil war, called The Anglophone Crisis, that has been occurring since 2016. This was also a challenge for me in my project, as the goal of my campaign was to encourage people to come to Cameroon to teach English. Who would want to come to a country with so much tension and conflict?  

Q: What do you want people to take away from your project?  

In the end, this was a Cultural Awareness Campaign, and what I want people to understand from the project is that language and culture are powerful. As in Cameroon, language and culture can cause much conflict, but also, with an understanding and appreciation for multilingualism and multiculturalism, can bring the world together.  

Throughout the poster itself, my design partner and I tried to be culturally responsive in order to share a realistic image of Cameroon. We did research on their classrooms, population, and geography to portray a cartoonish, yet realistic classroom image. We also chose to use maps and flags to increase our viewers' understanding of the country and its conflicts. In all, I want viewers to learn more about Cameroon - its history, landscapes, people, culture, and conflicts, and I want viewers to recognize the power and benefits of being someone who sees and values multilingualism and multiculturalism.  

Q: How is French helping you get to where you want to go with your future? 

French is helping me reach my goals in many ways. As someone who wants to teach English abroad in the near future, the linguistic knowledge I've acquired from learning another language as well as the intercultural competence and skills I have developed will benefit me greatly as I navigate life and teach in foreign environments. Even if I don't teach in a francophone country, going through the process of learning the language has shown me what that process feels like - its challenges, excitement, etc. This experience will help me empathize with my future students and the challenges they face as they learn English. Additionally, learning how to see culture, reflect on culture, and determine how and where my own culture and experiences fit will help me both teach my students more effectively and live in a different culture myself. Finally, being linguistically and culturally aware has made me a more open-minded person, which will benefit me greatly in whatever work I find myself doing in the future. I'll be able to work with diverse groups of people, value others' perspectives, and advocate for my own.