The Notion of Plurilingual and Pluricultural Competence in the Teaching of Foreign Languages in France

Abstract

In this article, we analyze the way the notions of plurilingual repertoire and Plurilingual and Pluricultural Competence (henceforth PPC) were interpreted in three foreign language teaching curricula published after 2010 (MENE1526483A, MENE1007260A and MENE1019796A). Our analysis shows that the development of the students’ PPC was not as well supported as the development of their linguistic competence in a learned language and therefore the development of students’ PPC was treated as a secondary goal. Being an announced but poorly defined objective, the notion of PPC remains unknown and distant to foreign language teachers. Our analysis is illustrated by empirical data collected from a Chinese as a Foreign Language teacher in a senior high school at Strasbourg. Our data demonstrated the anxiety of the teacher when she had to speak French during her Chinese courses and her constant though unwitting use of English to facilitate her teaching. The strategy of using English was interesting and efficient, but the teacher was not aware of it enough to be able to take a step back and to analyze her pedagogical practices. With the help of this example, we would like to argue that a better understanding of the meaning and possible pedagogical outcomes of the notion of PPC would help teachers to understand the cognitive benefits of acknowledging their students’ previous language competence in all its diversity and to recognize the value of adopting a more ecological approach to language teaching.