New French: A Pedagogical Crisis in the Making

Abstract

spective, foreign language pedagogy has shown amazing consistency over the last thirty years, with every major development favoring the promotion of speaking ability and listening comprehension to a level at least equal with that of writing and reading. This evolution is tied to broader sociological changes in the American educational system: concern with following a traditional curriculum and insuring that graduates exhibit the hallmarks of accession to a higher social class have given way to a new pragmatism and a sensitivity to other cultures. As opportunities for travel have spread from the upper to the middle classes, the notion that language study might allow students to interact face-to-face with members of a foreign culture a kind of interaction primarily dependent upon spoken, not written, language abilityhas become commonplace. Furthermore, it is widely held in pedagogical circles that, while second-language acquisition cannot directly reproduce the ideal patterns of first-language acquisition, neither should it run counter to them. From the most primitive audiolingual methodology through the Natural approach of Krashen, Terrell, et al., there is underlying faith in a sequence which lets the learner acquire spoken language structures before transferring them to writing, just as the native-speaking child does. But increased emphasis on spoken language has involved more than disengaging the hand and eye in favor of the mouth and ear. Written and spoken languages themselves are never identical. The nature of written language is to be conservative, since one of the functions of writing is transmission across time (see Joseph, 10 ?2.1). In extreme circumstances, a single society may employ separate languages in writing and speaking. This condition is known as diglossia; it existed throughout Europe during the Middle Ages, when written Latin coexisted with spoken vernaculars, some closely related to it (e.g. French), some distantly related (e.g. German), some unrelated (e.g. Hungarian) (see Ferguson, Britto). Diglossia continues to exist in much of the world. In Haiti, for example, French is the normal language of writing and formal functions. Haitian Creole, the normal spoken vernacular, is by every measure a distinct language. Creole is progressively usurping functional spheres from French, just as French usurped them centuries ago from Latin. Diglossias are thus nativized and undone. In every country of the Francophone world Standard French is in competition for functional spheres, either with indigenous languages (Wolof in Senegal, Basque in southwestern France), with other ex-colonial languages (English in Quebec, English and Arabic in Lebanon), or with French dialects other than the Metropolitan Standard (quidbcois in Quebec, jerriais in Jersey).' Falling into the last category is the current linguistic situation of France itself. Consider the following pairs of questions: