CLL’s Nicole Taylor is awarded the prestigious Ordre des Palmes Académiques for her dynamic teaching career
Nicole Taylor says she first came to Trinidad “to work on my English”. But it was the teaching of her native tongue over three decades that has won the French language instructor at UWI St Augustine’s Centre for Language Learning (CLL) international recognition.
Taylor was awarded the Ordre des Palmes Académiques (French for “Order of Academic Palms”), a prestigious French national award, similar to a knighthood, for distinguished academic service in propagating the language and culture of France.
When French Ambassador to Trinidad and Tobago Serge Lavroff was first petitioned to nominate Taylor for the award, he had to ask who she was. Having arrived in T&T in 2018, he had no way of knowing the impact that this down-to-earth educator has had within the French- learning community since the early 1970s.
It was Dr Beverly-Anne Carter, Director of CLL, who nominated Taylor to be recognised for her efforts, having worked closely with her for many years.
“It wasn’t a heavy CV,” Carter said. “She is not an academic researcher with a lot of publications.”
But when Lavroff asked his staff to tell him about “Madame Taylor”, they couldn’t say enough about her, characterising her as a warm and dedicated teacher who goes above and beyond to touch the lives of her students and the French-speaking community.
“By the time the staff had finished singing her praises,” Carter said, “there was no doubt in his mind that she was a deserving candidate.”
Born in Martinique, Taylor is a native French speaker. She learned French Creole/Kweyol as well, though she says, “you would never dare to speak it at home to your parents”. It was a language of “the street”, to be spoken as slang “with your friends at school”. But although she never studied it, she is fluent.
For this reason, to this day, she advises her students that the best way to achieve fluency in a language is immersion. “I make sure, I tell them, as soon as you enter the car park at the CLL, all English is gone. Make an effort to speak French only. We only have four hours a week. It’s not sufficient. But we have to make the most of it.”
She has certainly made the most of her time on this island, arriving shortly after completing the equivalent of A’ Levels in Martinique.
She describes herself as “a very outgoing, extroverted person. I like to be around people” — a trait that has served her well in her career.
“When I first came, I didn’t know anybody.” She would go to the Alliance Française, a French international language, arts and culture organisation, where she soon started giving conversation classes.
“I had no experience at all, but I used to discuss things and talk to the students. I was there almost every day.”
Participating in events at Alliance, as well as at the French Embassy, she became part of the community. It was not long before a friend, a teacher at St Augustine Girls’ High School, asked her to come in to assist students with their conversation practice.
She taught conversation classes at the secondary level at several other schools, including Bishop Anstey High School, St George’s College, Holy Name Convent, and St Joseph’s Convent, Port of Spain.
Her very first teaching assignment at UWI was not in language, but International Relations, where she “helped students to understand written articles, not so much to speak — it was more of a reading course”.
Taylor has also taught French at COSTAATT’s School of Language, where she met “another public, a lot of government employees, a lot of public servants, and medical practitioners”.
She has even helped students at the Trinidad and Tobago Hospitality and Tourism Institute to learn the language for culinary purposes, as well as for hospitality.
She recalls her early days teaching French: “I was in my 20s, some of my students were almost the same age. I saw them as my peers, and they saw me also as somebody they could relate to. We spoke a lot and I participated in their social activities.”
She even invited them to her home. “I would cook and prepare some French dishes”.
She left UWI but returned to join the CLL in 1999, where Dr Carter says she has brought “warmth and generosity to her interactions with students”.
“I admire her. She is empathetic, warm and patient. All her students love her,” says Carter, adding, “She is a very strong teacher who goes beyond. She’s student-focused, student-centred. At each end-of-year concert, you can bet your life there will be at least one item in French, she always encourages her students to participate.”
Dr Carter continues, “every three years at our open house, she would volunteer to make crêpes and be very involved. Even with the move to remote learning, where people aren’t used to learning online and find it is more demanding cognitively, we said we would reduce the length of sessions. But Nicole’s classes went over time. All her students wanted to continue the conversation.”
Taylor, she says, has tutored and trained countless scholarship winners:
“Over a 30-plus year career, she has maintained that kind of role as an anchor, an important person in French on campus.”Taylor was Acting Coordinator of the CLL in 2016. But as of last year, she has retired.
“I will miss them,” she says of her students, but does not dwell on any sadness. Instead, she says, “I am a very active person. I like to read and I like art.”
And having studied for translation and interpreting, she knows she can stay busy doing translation work for organisations she has worked for in the past, such as CARIFORUM, Rotary Club International and the Trinidad and Tobago Football Association.
Carter says she “felt that coming to the formal end of her career, we needed to recognise and acknowledge her contribution, and say a very public ‘thank you’. That’s why I thought of nominating her.”
Because of COVID-19’s restrictions, the French Embassy has had to postpone the award-giving ceremony. Ambassador Lavroff has promised to do the formal affair once conditions allow.
Receiving the honour came as a complete surprise, Taylor recalls. Even though CLL had been notified, it remained a “well-guarded secret”.
“One day I was checking my email and I saw the subject line “Palmes Académiques”. I saw it was the Ambassador writing, congratulating me and telling me I had been granted the knighthood. I was so shocked it took me almost a week to tell my son.”
Taylor is the mother of actor-director-producer Paul Robert Pryce, who is pursuing a career in New York, having attained an MFA from Yale University.
She is sure to have earned, along with her Ordre des Palmes, an enduring place in the hearts of hundreds of French students.
