French Course Research Articles

Antecedents of Foreign Language Enjoyment (FLE) in the French Classroom

Antecedents of foreign language enjoyment (FLE) are important for practitioners and researchers to understand as FLE has been linked to important concepts like motivation and language achievement. The literature on antecedents is, however, rather scarce and overly dependent on top-down qualitative coding to fully understand this phenomenon. This report seeks to add to the knowledge of sources of FLE by investigating the antecedents of FLE in U.S. learners of French. The present study uses data collected from an open-ended survey and analyzed via an interpretive approach. The survey was sent out to students enrolled in undergraduate French courses at a large Southeastern university and a total of 50 participants responded to the questionnaire out of 183 directly solicited, for a response rate of 27%. The results revealed that content, teacher personality, and a sense of community were sources of FLE, with the sense of community taking the lion’s share of responses. This report argues that this sense of community, which was previously unattested in the literature, can be explained adequately within the second language and positive psychology (L2EPP) theory of emotions. Theoretical implications and future directions are discussed.

Language Learning Outcomes in on Ground Vs. Online Settings: Comparison and Correlation

ABSTRACT While the effectiveness of online instruction has been well established, there remains a limited understanding of the correlation between language skills and performance across various instructional sections. This study investigates the language proficiency outcomes of college students in online and on-ground language instruction, focusing on four essential language skills: Reading, Writing, Listening, and Speaking. Data were collected from students enrolled in third-semester language courses in French, German, Italian, and Spanish during the Spring semesters of 2019 and 2021 with on-ground and online instruction respectively in a public university in the United States. Descriptive statistics, the Kruskal-Wallis test, and pairwise correlation analysis were used to analyze the students’ performance in both modalities. The results indicate that students generally outperformed in the online modality, demonstrating a significantly higher positive correlation range compared to on-ground instruction. This finding suggests that multi-modality language instruction has the potential to foster more integrated and cohesive language proficiency development. The implications firstly show the positive correlation range in the online modality indicates that college instructors may be more capable of implementing effective online teaching methods due to various reasons. Secondly, college students’ potential for self-directed learning in the online setting may contribute to their enhanced outcomes. However, the study also reveals challenges for less taught languages, such as the need for additional support in terms of resource curation and networking opportunities for instructors.

Academic Writing for French Language Programs: Undergraduate students in Malawi as a Case Study

The transition from secondary school to university in Malawi necessitates the implementation of purposeful academic skills courses that are intervention oriented. These courses are aimed at equipping students with the necessary competencies, particularly in the domain of academic writing. Given that Malawi is an anglophone nation, these courses predominantly concentrate on enhancing students’ writing abilities within the context of the English language. Nonetheless, it is worth noting that certain academic institutions in Malawi also admit students who are enrolled in French programs or are pursuing French courses. This underscores the importance of developing academic skills training programs tailored to the requirements of French courses. In the present study, we hypothesize that none of the Malawian universities where French programs/courses are offered have courses specifically designed for the acquisition of academic writing skills for the French language. Given this context, the present article attempts to ascertain the assertion of the lack of courses specifically designed for academic writing in French and explores how students acquire and develop the academic writing skills in French in the Malawian university. Data for the study was collected through an online questionnaire Journal of Languages & Translation Vol 04/Issue 01 /January 2024 01-23 Beaton Galafa, Mtende Wezi Nthara & Madalitso David Mulingo 2 distributed to students enrolled in French programs or courses at three higher education institutions in Malawi: University of Malawi, Mzuzu University, and Domasi College of Education. The findings of this study, organized into various thematic categories, provide valuable insights into the realm of academic writing for French language studies within the context of Malawian universities.

Toward trans multilingualisms: student attitudes toward and experiences with trans linguacultures in French

ABSTRACT There is increasing recognition of the imperative of gender justice in language education. Despite this momentum, reflected as it is in ongoing calls to resist cisheteronormativity and in a growing body of literature on the benefits of gender-just pedagogies, movement toward a distinctly trans approach to applied linguistics and toward trans multilingualisms remains woefully uneven and often entirely absent. One of many contributing factors is anecdotal speculation about student resistance that has persisted unchecked, particularly given limited data on student experiences with developing trans-inflected multilingualisms. To respond, this study explored the attitudinal stances taken by 59 undergraduates in a fifth-semester French course in the United States toward trans people, knowledges, and linguistic practices using a pre-course/post-course mixed-methods survey design. Results indicated that most students had no prior experience with trans linguacultures in their French-language coursework, contrasting with broad interest and readiness to learn about these topics. Although students varied in their attitudinal stances, results also demonstrated that an overall openness to, interest in, and valuing of developing their own trans multilingualisms was only enhanced by the 16-week course experience, adding to the robust body of evidence urging scholar-educators to work toward increasingly gender-just forms of language education.

Dissonance and self-reflections: Decentering assumptions to foster learners’ cognitive flexibility

The process of developing intercultural competence requires students to decenter from their existing frames of interpretation. Dissonance creates opportunities to question assumptions by challenging the primacy of perspectives, fostering skills to grapple with new knowledge and the ability to think more dialectically about the world. The present study examines how reflecting on dissonance engages skills and dispositions that support the development of cognitive flexibility, the ability to switch between emic and etic perspectives. In an advanced French course focused on marketing and communication, embodiments of economic patriotism in advertising and marketing practices in France aimed to disrupt and destabilize assumptions about the impact and role of globalization on local product consumption and consumer behavior. The analysis of students’ self-reflections collected in two sections of the course shows that dissonance acted as a sensitizing device, signaling to students the limits of their own perspectives. The juxtaposition of multiple perspectives through the angle of marketing prompted reinterpretation, questioning, and awareness of the subjectivities of interpretation, fostering dialectical thinking skills. Imagination, interest, and curiosity were key in sustaining the decentering process and developing a readiness for cognitive flexibility.

Examining language and racial attitudes in an L2 French learning context

ABSTRACT This is a quantitative study on language and racial attitudes among learners of French in the English-dominant context of British Columbia (Canada). Such attitudes matter because they can have an impact on students’ learning outcomes in and outside the classroom and they reflect linguistic and racial ideologies that exist in society. A verbal guise test was used to gather data from 83 participants who were taking intermediate and advanced French courses at the University of British Columbia (UBC) at the time of this study. Five varieties of French (from Montreal, Moncton, Vancouver, Abidjan and Paris) and two races (Asian and White) were included. The objectives were to investigate the effect of accent and race on the participants’ language attitudes. The results revealed a clear preference for European French and Quebec French, but these findings can be challenged by the participants’ difficulty in distinguishing among the different varieties. Interestingly, L2 French was evaluated more positively than the L1 varieties from Moncton and Abidjan – a finding that points to the importance of having exposure to non-standard accents in order to enhance positive attitudes. Finally, the participants also demonstrated a preference for the accents of Asians (compared with Whites) in evaluating spoken French.

Types of Texts in Teaching French as a Foreign Language

The article aims to present the typology of texts to be studied in the course of French as a foreign language. The relevance of the research is due to the insufficient development of a general typology of texts, the variability of the composition of typologies offered by French-speaking linguists and methodologists, as well as the terminological disorder of the names of the types of texts included in them. The article deals with the main typologies of texts, developed in French linguistics, then with the typologies based on them, used in French lingua-didactics. Then a personal structural and pragmatic typology of texts in French, containing 13 types of texts with their main characteristics and a number of examples, is presented. The methods of observation, comparison, description, interpretation, analysis, synthesis and typology were used in the study. The practical value of the study lies in the possibility of applying the developed typology of texts in teaching French as a foreign language at different levels and stages of learning.

The Advertising Poster: What Contribution In French Lessons?

Our article aims to present an approach that focuses on the didactisation of advertising by proposing the key tools for successful teaching of French. These publicity documents can also be used for evaluation purposes. This being said, we are going to evoke examples of activities and approaches that a teacher of FLE can use in his class, notably in the Moroccan school with its socio-cultural specificities. The latter is an inseparable factor in the production and design of the advertising poster. Among other things, we propose an analysis of the construction of the poster at the iconic and textual level, based on a corpus composed of three advertising posters representing three different telecommunications companies: Maroc Telecom -INWI - Orange. We will review the contribution of the advertising image in French lessons. In addition, we will propose a model of methodology and approach conceived for a French course by referring to our problematic presented at the beginning of our work, namely: How to achieve a semiotic approach to the advertising poster in the French language classroom? This being said, the salient points of our study are: firstly, the semiology of the advertising image. Secondly, the cultural framework and intercultural pedagogy in relation to the advertising poster. Thirdly, advertising as a didactic support in the teaching/learning of FLE.

Французская защита: внешняя политика Э. Макрона в 2022–2023 гг.

The article considers the main directions of France’s foreign policy after the re-election of President E. Macron in 2022. The authors analyze four problematic areas of the French course: European integration, European security crisis, the knot of contradictions in the Indo-Pacific region and the current situation in Africa. Seeking the answer to the key research question of the paper – what will dominate the essence of Macron's foreign policy in his second term, continuity or alteration – the authors use the methods of systemic and comparative analysis. The authors determine the three key factors shaping the foreign policy of France in 2022–2023: the transition of the Ukrainian crisis to large-scale warfare, aggravation of US–China relations and increased international competition for influence in Africa. In total, all this narrows the freedom of maneuver for France in Europe, the IPR and in Africa. Speaking of the European direction, the implementation of an ambitious project of the EU strategic autonomy and even ‘Europe-puissance’ with the participation of Russia – advocated by Macron during his first mandate – is suspended, to say the least. The Atlantic vector in French foreign policy dominates over the European one. The France's position regarding the Ukrainian crisis is toughening, thus the France–Russia relations are deteriorating. The authors suppose that most likely only with the end of the conflict, France will be able to return to its ambitious foreign policy activity. In the Indo-Pacific region France is trying to shape a conditionally ‘neutral’ coalition around itself, but the field for its maneuvers is also narrowing. It is also difficult for Paris it to conceptualize its political strategy in the region. In Africa France has to defend its political and economic positions, and its priority will most likely be the search for new formats of cooperation that would appeal to Africans. The authors conclude that the Macron's France adjusts its previous course to new challenges that complicate the background environment for the French diplomacy to take actions in.

Multimodal Differentiation for Allophone Pupils in First Language French Classroom

Language classroom interactions can be characterized as multimodal, since teachers may resort to a variety of resources provided by their body or by their immediate space in order to convey meaning, manage activities and assess pupils’ performances. Furthermore, teachers’ multimodal practices constitute an essential component for the differentiating process aiming to resolve especially linguistic problems some pupils may face. In this perspective, this study examines the implementation of multimodal differentiation by the same teacher in the case of allophone pupils following first language French courses alongside with native pupils of 3rd grade within the context of inclusion classroom in a middle school in France. More specifically, it was aimed to analyze a teacher’s adaptation of kinesic and proxemic behaviors within the differentiation process, such as the use of hand gestures, gaze and facial expressions as bodily resources but also the control of interpersonal distance with respect to allophone pupils. For this purpose, a micro-ethnographic research strategy was applied, and data was collected through video-recorded sessions of the teacher in inclusion classroom. Our qualitative analysis of the data revealed a differentiated use of prosodic, kinesic and proxemic elements by the teacher, such as the reduction of speech rate, the accentuation of words, the production of deictic and iconic hand gestures as well as facial expressions, the orientation of gaze, the forward leaning posture, the isolated seating arrangement, and the reduction of interpersonal distance. All these elements either follow or overlap each other, especially within the framework of teacher instructions during classroom activities.

Development of Teaching Materials for French Courses for Class X SMA Based on 2013 Curriculum Using Instagram Media

In the 21st century the learning process must integrate Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in learning activities. The development of information and communication technology causes the need for learning to also grow rapidly and the concept of learning can be implemented with the help of technology such as the internet. In 2020, internet-based learning activities have been widely implemented in the field of education, from elementary to university levels due to the Covid-19 pandemic in the world. This condition requires physical distancing to break the chain of the spread of Covid-19. All schools and colleges responded by carrying out learning from home, through online learning with the use of information technology. The purpose of this research is to: (1) develop teaching materials for French class X high school based curriculum 2013 using Instagram media, (2) assess the feasibility of teaching materials for French class X high school based curriculum 2013 using Instagram media, and (3) explain the effectiveness of the materials teach French class X subjects in high school based on the 2013 curriculum using Instagram media. This development research uses the ADDIE development model (Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, Evaluation). The research instrument used was a questionnaire and a written test. The product of research results (teaching materials for French class X SMA subjects must be validated by experts before being tested in the field (experiments).

Head Face and Neck Surgeon Deployment in the New French Role 2: The Damage Control Resuscitation and Surgical Team.

High-intensity conflict is back after decades of asymmetric warfare. With the increase in the incidence of head, face, and neck (HFN) injuries, the French Medical Military Service has decided to deploy HFN surgeons in the new French Role 2: the Damage Control, Resuscitation, and Surgical Team (DCRST). This study aims to provide an overview of HFN French surgeons from their initial training, including the surgical skills required, to their deployment on the DCRST. The DCRST is a tactical mobile medico-surgical structure with several configurations depending on the battlefield, mission, and flux of casualties. It represents the new French paradigm for the management of combat casualties, including HFN injuries. The HFN's military surgeon training starts during residency with rotation in the different subspecialties. The HFN surgeon follows a training course called "The French Course for Deployment Surgery" that provides sufficient background to manage polytrauma, including HFN facilities on modern warfare. We have reviewed the main surgical procedures required for an HFN military surgeon. The systematic deployment of HFN surgeons in Role 2 is a specificity of the French army as well as the HFN surgeon's training.Currently, the feedback from an asymmetric conflict is encouraging. However, it will have to innovate to adapt to modern warfare.

L’hospitalité en milieu associatif : entre idéal et praxis. Imaginaire postcolonial et relations entre les participants à un cours de français

This article deals with the construction of interpersonal relations between participants in French courses organized in a French association specializing in welcoming migrants and homeless people. We first emphasize the connections between colonialism and the practices linked to institutional hospitality and language teaching. We then present, based on the analysis of excerpts of conversations and interactions recorded during French classes, the transversal and shared nature of the postcolonial imagination. We demonstrate how participants in French courses update, reaffirm or challenge it, in processes of alterization and identification. We emphasize how this imagination structures the didactic context, (re)produces social stratification and establishes power relationships.

Development of students’ spoken language in an online French course: Presentation of continuing doctoral research

Abstract The present paper describes continuing doctoral research which examines the development of oral language during an online French course in terms of complexity, accuracy and fluency (CAF), and reflects on the possible influence of the online intervention on this development. The research is designed as a multiple-case study with 11 university students as participants of the research, each student forming a single case of the study. The pre-test post-test design was chosen in order to analyse students’ spoken performance before and after the intervention, and thus to assess its development. The paper outlines the results of accuracy analysis, which indicate that language performance cannot be judged solely by one aspect of CAF: many errors identified in this research seem to be a sign of the use of more complex language; and precise and accurate language without errors does not seem to be complex or fluent. The number of phonetic errors and some replies in the interviews suggest that the online course did not place enough importance on the teaching of pronunciation. These suppositions will be tested in the next stages of the research. The paper is part of the AILA Europe special issue.

Gender-justice and the development of intersectional thinking: evidence from an intermediate French course

Language educators are increasingly recognizing the importance of pedagogies that engage with students as whole persons, particularly from a gender-just and intersectional paradigm. However, action on this ethical impetus is often limited by a nexus of inadequate training, materials, and research. Using data from 112 US undergraduate students of intermediate-level French, this study investigates the possible relationships among gender-just practices and the development of students’ intersectional thinking. Results suggest that gender-just pedagogies are a viable tool for increasing students’ exposure to, awareness of, and ability to engage in thinking about intersections and intersectionality.

Gender‐just language teaching and linguistic competence development

AbstractWithin a broad turn toward identity‐focused pedagogies, educators are increasingly recognizing the critical impetus to engage with gender in expansive and inclusive ways. However, challenges persist. Often inadequate supports are exacerbated by a lack of empirical investigations into whether and how gender‐just language teaching may contribute to student learning. Thus, very little is known about how this ethical imperative interfaces with linguistic outcomes. To respond, this study analyzed linguistic accuracy and complexity in assignment data from 112 US undergraduate students enrolled in one of three iterations of an intermediate French course, which varied in whether and when gender‐just pedagogies were introduced. Results indicated that gender‐just language pedagogies contribute to significantly lower overall mean error rates but do not have a statistically significant relationship with mean length of utterance. Implications are discussed, including the clear benefit of an early‐and‐often approach to gender justice in the language classroom.

Student Engagement and Language Learning: What, Why, and How?

Student Engagement and Language Learning: What, Why, and How?

Course of Instruction.

Course of Instruction Harvey P. Peet, LLD The character and long experience of Mr. Turner give to his article with this heading, in the last number of the Annals, (page 97 et Seq,) a certain importance, and entitle his views to a careful examination. It is to be regretted that "twenty-eight years" of experience in teaching language, should not have taught Mr. Turner the value of perspicuity and propriety of expression. For instance, the phrase, "a manual alphabet on one hand," is unnecessarily ambiguous, giving the reader the idea, not of a one-handed manual alphabet, but of a manual alphabet, set in contrast with something else. On page 101, near the middle, we find a verb and its dependent words without a nominative, (a contempt of grammar quite in character in an article written professedly to decry "books constructed according to the grammatical theory.") And Mr. Turner surely expresses more than he intended, when he states, page 98, that the "German system" "is content with nothing short of changing the deaf-mute into a speaking and apparently a hearing person." We usually connect present contentment with what is actually done, not with what is merely a rarely, if ever, attainable object of desire and effort. Just exception may be taken to the epithet, "infallible" near the bottom of page 101. We are aware of no "guide in composition," that is claimed to be "infallible." But it is claimed that the pupil who enjoys the benefit of a well arranged course of lessons, in which the difficulties of construction are divided and graduated, will, other things being equal, compose with greater ease, and with fewer mistakes, than one whose instruction in language has proceeded without order or method. Faults like these are noticed because they indicate crudeness of thought, as well as haste and negligence of expression; because they lead to the inference that Mr. Turner could not have bestowed upon the subject that careful and close reflection which its importance demands. But the present communication has a higher object than the advantages which may be taken from the haste, negligence, or confusion of an opponent. Mr. Turner has put forth objections to the "elementary part" of a certain "course of instruction," which, according to him, is used in the "French and American schools." The elementary works published by the New York Institution, without being openly named, are still comprehended under this designation, and evidently aimed at. Without pausing to examine the correctness of Mr. Turner's exposition of the different systems of instruction, or of his remarks on unimportant or irrelevant points, let us seek to discover, if possible, the rationale of his objections to what he is pleased to name "the French course," and reply to whatever there may be tangible in his reasoning, letting the chaff blow away of itself. We are bound to suppose that when Mr. Turner "acknowledges the hand of Providence" in the "fortunate" adoption in this country, of the "French system, rather than either of the others," he must have [End Page 32] meant to make a distinction between this "French system" and the "French course of instruction," which he condemns. What, in his view, constituted the difference, it is not very easy to divine. He states, (page 98,) as one of the most prominent traits of the "French system," that it employs "a set of conventional signs expressive of the relations of words in a sentence, and of the changes which words admit of in respect to case, tense, number, comparison, &c.;" in other words, a set of grammatical signs; and he defines (page 101) the "French course of instruction" as proceeding on the principle of teaching language in connection with grammar. So, then, Mr. Turner is devoutly grateful for an artificial set of signs, expressive of the grammatical relations and inflections of words, while he deprecates as "artificial" a course of lessons designed to impress practically on the memory these grammatical relations and inflections. The fact probably is that Mr. T. finds in his system of grammatical signs, a means of supplying the want of order and method in his lessons. If by "teaching language in connection with grammar...

Teaching to Read as an Outsider: How I Created and Taught an Introductory Course on Indigenous Literatures in Quebec

Teaching to Read as an OutsiderHow I Created and Taught an Introductory Course on Indigenous Literatures in Quebec Marie-Hélène Jeannotte (bio) In 2009, when discussing the new course I was about to give on Indigenous literatures in Quebec, I was often met with doubtful questions: "But what books will you teach? Which authors? Is it really a literature?" A few years earlier, at the turn of the 2000s, Maurizio Gatti, one of the first researchers to study Indigenous literatures in French, faced similar disbelief from an employee at the Quebec documentation center in Paris, but also from the majority of professors he approached to supervise his PhD, some of them even challenging the very existence of Indigenous literatures (Littérature 18). At that time, Indigenous books in French were both rare and largely ignored. Librarians and other book professionals viewed Indigenous texts as purely ethnological (Gatti, Littérature 17–19). Unlike Indigenous literatures in English, which, back in 2009, were already well established in English Canada, Indigenous literatures in French in Quebec were then still absent from the literary field. As Isabelle St-Amand states, Si les littératures autochtones sont relativement bien établies au Canada anglais, il en va autrement dans le cas du Québec, où le statut de la littérature autochtone fait toujours l'objet de discussions. … [L]es œuvres des écrivains autochtones sont peu enseignées dans les universités et peu de discours critiques ont été élaborés sur la question.1 Indeed, Indigenous literatures were missing from university literary studies curricula in Quebec in the first decade of the 2000s. Indigenous literatures in French were taught in Ontario (Gatti, Être écrivain 180) and at Laval University's Department of Anthropology (Gagné 227). In 2008, the need to establish the legitimacy of these literatures in [End Page 135] academia and research but also within a curriculum convinced me to propose the creation of a course entirely dedicated to Indigenous literatures from Quebec to the University of Sherbrooke, the Francophone university where I was an MA student. I designed the course as an introduction to Indigenous literatures in French (or in French translation) in Quebec, including oral tradition and contemporary works. The course was offered for the first time in 2009. According to Gatti (Être écrivain 180) and Louis-Karl Picard-Sioui (5), it was the first Indigenous literatures course in French to officially be included in a Quebec university literary studies' curriculum. I have taught this class often since, updating and expanding it as Indigenous literatures in Quebec achieve wider and wider recognition. While none of my students had ever read an Indigenous work—nor could name an Indigenous writer—at the beginning of our first semester in 2009, the situation is the opposite today. Students who have never read a literary work by an Indigenous author are now in the minority. In this article, I wish to share and reflect upon my experience as a non-Indigenous teacher creating an introductory course in a literature department where Indigenous works were, back in 2009, practically unknown. I do not present this particular course as a model to follow. On the contrary, my intention is to describe the context within which the course was created, as well as the challenges, issues raised, and missteps made along the way. Having now taught this course several times over a decade, I wish to detail its evolution as well as that of its academic context, and of myself as a teacher. As well, I propose to explore questions that will be of interest to non-Indigenous scholars setting out to teach Indigenous literatures. As a teacher, how can I establish the legitimacy of Indigenous literatures? How can I equip students to read, interpret, and analyze works by First Nations authors when basic knowledge of Indigenous cultures is often lacking? How can I help students gain more awareness of their biases? I will share here a few avenues for reflection that have proved useful over these past thirteen years, all of which stem from fostering a sense of humility, listening, and empathy. filling a gap I came to Indigenous Studies through literature and specifically the...

Preparing and Implementing Instruction Reading Activities in French Language Classes: An Action Research with Pre-Service French Teachers

In this study, answers were sought about how instruction reading activities affect pre-service teachers’ instruction reading behavior, the opinions of pre-service teachers about instruction reading activities, how to apply instruction reading activities in Text Grammar in a French course, and how instruction reading activities affect pre-service teachers’ awareness of delivering the instructions. The study was designed as action research. For this purpose, following the literature review, teaching materials were developed and applied to improve instruction reading skills. The participants of the study consisted of students studying at the French Language Teaching Program in a state university, who are attending a second-year spring semester Text Grammar in a French course. Different qualitative and quantitative data collection tools such as video recordings, observations, interviews, researcher diary, and achievement tests were used to collect data in the study. As a result of the analysis of the data, it was observed that instruction reading activities had a positive effect on the students’ instruction reading skills, increased the students’ awareness of instruction reading, and supported the use of strategies in instruction reading. Instruction reading activities conducted during the action research influence the development of instruction reading skills of French teacher candidates. And these activities created an awareness of the instruction in pre-service teachers and supported instruction reading behaviour. In addition, instruction reading activities had positive effects on the academic achievement, strategy use, and professional development of participants.