the Micheline Le Gall (MLG) Endowed Award

The Micheline Le Gall Endowed Award honors a life devoted to teaching, culture, and human connection.

Born in Paris in 1930, Micheline's early years—marked by loss and wartime hardship—shaped her resilience and quiet leadership and strength. A chance encounter in a Paris café led her to Boston, where she discovered her calling as a French language, literature and culture educator and met her husband, Jean Le Gall, a former Resistance member and engineer. Together, they built a life in Palo Alto, California deeply engaged in the French American community. While Jean pursued his distinguished career in the field of science, Micheline became a leading and highly respected figure in the field of French language and culture education. She founded the Alliance Française of Palo Alto, and through its platform she inspired numerous students with her language, literature and culture knowledge, as well as her warmth, elegance, and ability to bring the French language and culture to life in every single lesson that she conceptualized, prepared and enthusiastically taught to her students. Her exemplary teaching extended beyond grammar and the mechanics of the language; for she strove to transmit the cultural nuances that underlie each French linguistic text and to build learners' confidence, and strengthen their cultural connection to the language and culture that they were acquiring. Madame Micheline Le Gall also mentored multiple cadres of educators through the American Association of Teachers of French (AATF), further contributing to a community of well-prepared French language and culture educators, not only in California, but throughout the nation. Micheline adeptly served as the treasurer of the Northern California AATF chapter for 25 years, and was a champion of the annual Grand Concours/National French Contest, especially the FLES* Contest and experienced great joy in witnessing French students being recognized for at the annual Grand Concours Award Ceremonies often hosted by Stanford University and other Institutions of Higher Education in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Created by her daughter Carole with the AATF, this endowed award continues Micheline's lifetime commitment and devotion of promoting excellence in the teaching of the French language, literature and culture. By supporting the continuous development of French language, literature and culture educators, it ensures that her spirit will continue to live on across classrooms, generations, and communities through those entrusted to carry forward the same level of passion that characterized Micheline's lifetime work. This scholarship offers educators funds to offset costs associated with attending professional growth opportunities by the organizations entrusted to continue Micheline's mission, vision and passion in support of the teaching the French language, literature and culture to current and future generations of Americans.

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