French Language Classroom Research Articles

On Not Translating: Making History in the French Language Classroom

Published in 1930 by Angus and Robertson, Souvenirs d’une Parisienne aux antipodes was proclaimed the first Australian book to be published in French. A collection of three autobiographical narratives, the book tracks Marie Niau’s life, from the siege of Paris (1870–71) to four years on a selection in the Daintree in the 1880s. Heralded by the mainstream press as worthy of a place in Australian archives yet labelled ‘a delightful little French reader’ elsewhere, the composite nature of the book and its multiple enunciative contexts confounded expectations where both language textbooks and historical narrative were concerned. Drawing on Paul John Eakin’s understanding of autobiography as narrative identity transaction and Claire Kramsch’s concept of multilingual subjectivity, this article focuses on the performative potential of the book in Australian classrooms with respect to learner identity and historical consciousness.

Teachers' perceptions and implementations of global Englishes and Frenches in language classrooms

AbstractAn important first step to globalizing and decentralizing foreign language education is to clarify current language teachers' perceptions of language varieties and how these perceptions influence their pedagogy. The present study looked at English and French language classrooms in K‐12 and university settings in the United States to compare attitudes around varieties of two dominant global languages with colonial legacies through an anonymous questionnaire completed by 36 language teachers. The study aimed to understand to what extent English and French language teachers drew on the linguistic diversity of the respective languages and if there was a connection between received ideas and attitudes around varieties and approaches taken in language classrooms. Findings suggest that language teachers were influenced by their own language learning histories, leading to a misalignment between teaching beliefs and pedagogical practices. Additionally, language teachers were subject to curricular constraints that influenced their teaching practices around language varieties. Implications for teacher education are discussed.

The use of mother tongue in a FLE class. Case of the Department of French at the University of Mosul

This research takes the use of the mother tongue in the French language classroom as a foreign language and the role that this language plays. This work consist of two parts: theoretical and practical. The theoretical part presents this concepts that lie at the hearts of this study, such as defining the field of the art of education in general, and teaching and learning the French language as a foreign language in particular. This part also sheds light on the language class, then the concept of language, and the definition of the mother tongue and the foreign language and what is the relationship between them. Then it deals with the uses of the mother tongue, and ends with the mother language according to the curricula. While the practical part includes a questionnaire addressed to the professors of the Department of French Language at University of Mosul. According to the answers received from the questionnaire, the research concludes that the use of the mother language with students in the first and second grades plays an important positive role in teaching FLE. While it hinders the learning of the French language for third and fourth grade students in the Department of French Language at the University of Mosul.

From Constraints to Control: The French Language Classroom in Multilingual Nigeria

There are several issues associated with the teaching and learning of French Language in an Anglophone environment like Nigeria. For effective `interaction with the neighbouring countries, Nigerian citizens need the knowledge of French language. Nigeria is an Anglophone country that is surrounded by francophone countries. French Language teachers face a lot of issues while carrying out their day to day activities in the classroom. Some of them include mother tongue interference, lack of use of instructional materials, challenges of the modern technological facilities, confusion of the target French Language, hostile environmental issues, psychological issues, teachers’ personal issues and that of the learners etc. All these issues seem to affect the learning processes in the French Language classrooms. All the above constraints contribute to the poor performance of French language in Nigerian schools; this has led to poor academic achievement of students in French language which has spilled over to poor performance of students in both internal and external examinations.

Developing an integrated Local Culture Padlet Based Writing Course Using Systemic Functional Linguistics Genre Based Pedagogy

Abstract. Due to the implementation of distance learning policy in Indonesia, the usual class is suspended as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak. Since then, the demand of innovative teaching involving the use of computer assisted learning tools increases progressively. Undeniable, a distance learning scheme has not been able to outperform a conventional face-to-face classroom learning. One of the problems was encountered in Production Écrite Elimentaire (hereafter PEE) class, where lecturers could not monitor students’ writing progress directly. This study aims at developing a Padlet based writing course by integrating local culture using Systemic Functional Linguistic Genre Based pedagogy (SFL-GBP) adopting ADDIE approach. In order to achieve this objective, three lecturers and 32 students were involved to validate the result of Padlet product. This research used two kinds of instruments i.e., an open-ended questionnaire and an experts’ rubric. The open-ended questionnaire was used to identify students’ needs in PEE course, and the experts’ rubric was used to examine Padlet by regarding the appropriateness of material and language, the procedure of SFL-GPB, and the media. The overall mean scores of the experts' judgement towards the Padlet feasibility shows significant figures, i.e., the material aspects gained 3.7, the appropriateness was 3.8, and the media reached 3.7. On the other hand, the results of the students' opinion analysis also show a positive figure where the mean score for material as well as language aspects were 3.9, and media aspect had 3.75 mean score. The findings. The findings of this study were expected to have a further contribution to the development of comprehensive teaching syllabuses, materials, as well as lesson plans for French-language classrooms in the university, especially integrating local culture and the SFL Pedagogy approach. Keywords: Padlet, Writing Course, Local Culture, SFL-GBP

Exploring the Influence of Classroom Interaction on Academic Communication Skills in Secondary Schools: A Case Study of Selected Senior High Schools in the Tahoua Region

This study explored the relationship between classroom interaction and academic communication in secondary schools. The study was prompted by the low proficiency in English and French observed among students in the Faculty of Education in Tahoua after seven years of secondary education. The study adopted a mixed-methods research approach to uncover the reasons behind this situation, including classroom observations, semi-structured teacher interviews, a student questionnaire, and a controlled experiment. Data (quantitative and qualitative) were analysed through descriptive and inferential statistics and an inductive thematic approach. The study involved classroom observations in English and French language classrooms. In addition, the students (1391) were separated into two groups for the experiment: an experimental group that utilised interactive teaching methods and a control group that followed traditional methods. The results of the three-month experiment revealed that the experimental group exhibited enhanced oral communication skills compared to the control group, suggesting that classroom interaction is a key factor in academic communication. The findings of this study underline the importance of incorporating interactive teaching strategies in the classroom to enhance student communication skills.

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.

Social Medias, Zoom and Microsoft Teams: the New Technologies in French Language Classrooms in the Jordanian Context during the Covid-19

The Covid-19 has had a significant impact on teaching/learning processes around the world. As a result, education practitioners in Jordan and elsewhere have had to adapt quickly and switch to distance education: social media, including Facebook, Zoom, and Microsoft Teams. Social networks play an indispensable role in teaching/learning French as a Foreign Language, while providing a wide range of authentic materials. They make it easy for students to interact and provide the opportunity to discover online tools to develop their skills. Internet and all other forms of computer-mediated communication help learners to accelerate their acquisition, while being up-to-date and independent. However, as a result of our feedback from the field, it turned out that Zoom and Microsoft Teams play an important role in all kinds of interactions between teacher and students and between students themselves. These two applications allow a live interaction; as the classroom is virtual, participants will have the ability to exchange ideas in a synchronous manner. It is possible to create groups for each given course. In this article, we will try to highlight the positive aspects of using social networks, especially Facebook, to improve the skills of our learners in the French language department at the University of Petra. Then, the use of Zoom will be analyzed. Finally, and based on a theoretical and practical analysis of a group created in Microsoft Teams, the latter will be studied in order to show the positive aspects of any insertion of such an application in the Jordanian context.

“I’m Trilingual – So What?”: Official French/English Bilingualism, Race, and French Language Teachers’ Linguistic Identities in Canada

The privileging of French and English in Canada has led to an official language policy that minimizes the country’s long-established multilingual realities in favour of a socio-politically constructed linguistic and cultural duality. The impact of this policy directly shapes the linguistically diverse yet monoglossically constructed French language classroom with teachers overwhelmingly orientated to “balanced” bilingualism. Research narratives generated with Western Canadian French as a second language (FSL) teachers show how an emphasis on official languages constrains the construction of a legitimate professional identity, especially among multilingual teachers of French. The article argues that official French/English bilingualism in Canada constitutes a key obstacle to moving beyond monolingual and racializing language ideologies associated with standardized French and has a significant impact on FSL teacher professional identity. The analysis of interview extracts shows teacher-participants prioritizing English and French at the expense of their heritage (non-official) languages, in effect erasing dimensions of their linguistic, racial, and cultural identities. The article concludes by considering how a lack of researcher reflexivity with regard to issues of race can reinforce both monoglossic ideologies and a well-entrenched disregard for multilingual knowledge in teacher education programs.

Didactic Games in the French Language Classroom

The growing interest in studying foreign languages in Latvia, including the study of French as a foreign language, is a feature of our time. This indisputable position determines the relevance of the article. All students choosing French for study have very different motivation. At the same time, everyone is aware that a good knowledge of foreign languages is an indispensable precondition for career growth and the key that opens the door for us to enter another culture. French language learning is a hard task which can sometimes be frustrating. Constant effort is required to understand, produce and manipulate the target language. Well-chosen games are invaluable as they give students a break and at the same time allow students to practice language skills. The author of the article shares the opinion that games are highly motivating since they are amusing and at the same time challenging. Furthermore, they employ meaningful and useful language in real contexts. Games also encourage and increase cooperation. They can be used to give practice in all language skills and be used to practice many types of communication. The curriculum for foreign languages emphasizes the importance of learning languages and especially the importance of communication. Because of this fact it is vitally important for teachers to create a positive learning environment, and to try to spark interest among their students both in the foreign language and culture because that is important to a successful language learning process. Games help achieve these goals. The article considers the types of games (research games, certification games and didactic games) and their influence on psycho-physiological state of students. Brief methodical recommendations on the organization of didactic playing activities are also provided. The author describes game-based learning and its impact on intrinsic motivation and performance of students, in particular their speaking skills. The theoretical part includes definitions of main concepts such as intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, and creativity. The practical part is dedicated to certain games and tasks to enhance motivation and speaking skills. In conclusion, the role of games in teaching and learning cannot be denied. However, in order to achieve the most from didactic games in the French classroom, it is essential that suitable games are chosen. Whenever a game is to be conducted, the number of students, proficiency level, cultural context, timing, learning topic, and the classroom settings are factors that should be taken into account.

La fabuleuse aventure des Bleus par Dominique Georges

Reviewed by: La fabuleuse aventure des Bleus par Dominique Georges Jessica L. Sturm Georges, Dominique. La fabuleuse aventure des Bleus. CLÉ International, 2019. ISBN 978-209-031717-6. Pp. 64. Teaching language through a specific context or cultural lens is an excellent way to get students engaged with the material, since it creates natural occasions for communication in the L2. La fabuleuse aventure des Bleus provides both a context for the presentation of new vocabulary and a cultural lens for students to compare French soccer, or sports in general, to their own country's focus on sports. With the immense worldwide popularity of soccer, and the sport's growing popularity in the United States, many students at the elementary, secondary, or university/college level would enjoy reading the story of the 2018 Men's World Cup Champions, les Bleus. Sports as a cultural lens is quite promising in the French language classroom. First, it is quite easy to draw parallels between the United States and France, in how their citizens practice and consume (watch) sports. Second, as teachers it is to our benefit to expand students' vision of French culture beyond food, fashion, art, architecture, etc. This book facilitates that expansion by recounting the team's path to the 2018 Men's World Cup while including mini-biographies of several players. Third, social issues such as immigration have a definite place in any discussion of sport. Talking and writing about soccer in the Francophone world and immigrant players in France is an approachable way to address a complicated topic in class. In addition, La fabuleuse aventure des Bleus is a highly accessible reading text, designed for the A2 level and accompanied by both a series of helpful footnotes and a soccer vocabulary list at the end. Students who are soccer fans or players will be able to intuit much of the vocabulary from reading in context, but the provided list will aid any with technical soccer terms. This book also contains a series of reading comprehension questions for each chapter, generally true/false, fill-in-the-blank, or multiplechoice. Beyond the reading activities and questions, this book can serve as a jumping-off point for class discussions, writing assignments, and making comparisons and connections between soccer or sporting culture in general in the students' community and in France. After reading this A2-level text on French soccer, students may feel better able to read authentic texts in French or Francophone newspapers on soccer. Another direction to take from this text is to investigate soccer in other Francophone countries, or to discuss immigration in the context of sports teams. Beyond being an appealing text on its own, La fabuleuse aventure des Bleus creates opportunities to explore numerous issues in France and the Francophone world, providing students with something to talk and write about, as well as a fascinating lens by which to examine the target culture(s) in French class. [End Page 275] Jessica L. Sturm Purdue University (IN) Copyright © 2022 American Association of Teachers of French

English: The Bridge within a French Language Classroom Context in Bahrain

English: The Bridge within a French Language Classroom Context in Bahrain

A Comprehensive Needs Analysis of French Course for Tourism and Hospitality Program

This study aims to conduct a comprehensive needs analysis on french language for tourism and hospitality programs by looking closely at three points of view, i.e., 120 students of tourism and hospitality program, 7 french lecturers, and 5 hospitality professionals. This research applied a mixed-methods approach to collecting the data. This means that this study deployed a set of qualitative and quantitative measures to attain deep answers. Furthermore, the data in this study were collected through multiple instruments, including interviews and questionnaires. The result of the analysis of the data revealed that the French language was one of the significant foreign languages, besides English, that needed to be learned by the students to have a good carrier in the hospitality and tourism industry in the future. Along with that fact, speaking was considered as the most important language skill, among the other skills, which have to be developed by the students. Moreover, the ideal teaching materials urgently needed to be developed within this context were those equal to the intermediate level. The findings of this study were expected to have a further contribution to the development of comprehensive teaching syllabuses, materials, as well as lesson plans for French-language classrooms in the tourism and hospitality program.

Enabling Translanguaging in the French Language Classroom

Recent studies in multilingual and translanguaging pedagogies have shifted the focus from investigating how students engage their multilingual repertoires to exploring how teachers understand and implement these pedagogical directions in their practice. In this article, the authors report on a national online survey on the multilingual perspectives and practices of teachers of French in Australia. The overall goal of the survey discussed here was to comprehensively capture how teachers of French understand the teaching and learning of languages in general, and of French in particular. The study revealed several tensions between the language teachers’ beliefs and practice. While most of the survey participants expressed strong support for innovative pedagogies such as translanguaging (García & Wei, 2014), and keen motivation to engage the full multilingual repertoire of their learners, a closer reading of the data indicated that most of them felt restricted in their practice by “the normative terms and conditions of an understanding of languages education that remains rooted in parochial, monolingual and pecuniary perspectives” (Weinmann & Arber, 2017, p. 173). In particular, the findings indicate that (self-)perceptions of “non-native” language teachers as “culturally deficient” continue to frame the notion of what constitutes a “good” language teacher (Holliday, 2015). For teachers to feel more confident and better equipped to effectively implement translanguaging pedagogies in their practice, teachers’ perceptions of their own multilingual identities and how these are shaped within the systems they work in (Young, 2017) need to be better understood.
 Keywords: Languages teaching, languages education, translanguaging, native language teacher, non-native language teacher, linguistic repertoire, multilingualism, Australia

Issues in French Language Learning in Nigeria

There are issues that French Language teachers face while carrying out their day to day activities in the classroom. Some of them include mother tongue interference, use of instructional materials, challenges of the modern technological facilities, confusion of the target French Language and even the learners’ and teachers’ personal challenges too, etc. These challenges can affect the learning processes in French Language classrooms. This paper will discuss some issues faced in the French Language classroom and proffer recommendations to tackle some of these issues.

Les non-dits dans les programmes et les manuels de FLE

L’article a pour objectif de présenter les résultats d’une recherche à caractère diagnostique concernant le choix des contenus d’enseignement dans les programmes et dans les manuels de FLE publiés en Pologne avant et après la Deuxième Guerre mondiale. Suite à l’analyse comparative, nous avons démontré une influence importante des facteurs institutionnels idéologiques sur les contenus linguistiques et socioculturels présents dans les programmes et les manuels de FLE polonais. Il en résulte que certains sujets et les champs lexicaux sont omis et sont considérés comme les non-dits ou les sujets tabous.

Evaluation of teachers’ use of instructional materials for teaching French in junior secondary schools

The purpose of this survey was to evaluate the teachers’ use of the instructional materials for teaching French as recommended in the junior secondary school curriculum for French. The population of the study consisted of the 20,384 junior secondary school students of French and their 34 teachers in the 23 junior secondary schools where French is studied in Owerri Education Zone 1 of Imo State. The sample comprised 360 students and 15 teachers of French selected through cluster random sampling. Two types of rating scale were used for the study, one for the students and the other for the teachers. The scales were researcher-made and each had 10 items that border on the instructional materials recommended in the junior secondary school curriculum for French. The instruments were validated using Crombach Coefficient Alpha. The students’ and teachers’ rating scales had reliability indices of 0.85 and 0.87 respectively. The data collected were analyzed using mean ratings, the percentage and ttest at 0.05 level of significance. It was found that the instructional materials used by the teachers for teaching French were drawings and text books and that there is significant difference in the instructional materials for teaching French at the junior secondary school as specified in the junior secondary school curriculum for French and as used by the teachers of French. Part of the recommendations is that in the French language classroom, the teachers need to use instructional materials recommended in the French language curriculum so that while using the materials, the students can use French and so acquire the language skills for communicating in the language.

Australia’s Education Futures and the East-Side Neighbours

In 2014, the importance of providing all young Australians with opportunities to be actively engaged with and literate in the cultures and languages of Asia continues to be evident in curriculum documents and the media. Whilst there is wide spread agreement that the study of Asian perspectives is important for the successful future of many young Australians, one could question why none of the countries located to the east of Australia have been mentioned in either the Melbourne Declaration (Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs, 2008) or the Australian curriculum, as these countries are also some of Australia’s closest neighbours. If Australia, as a nation, is truly aiming to develop its young people to be global citizens through the teaching and learning of different cultures and beliefs, then it does not seem unreasonable to say that young Australians also need to develop an appreciation for their East-side neighbours. However, as it stands the curriculum is argued as a crowded place; adding might result in the loss of something else. This article demonstrates how the French language classroom can be used as a means to contribute to developing the international-mindedness of young Australians in regards to their East-side neighbours without adding to the crowding of the current Australian Curriculum.

Laughing and smiling to manage trouble in French-language classroom interaction

This article deals with communicative functions of laughter and smiling in the classroom studied using a conversation analytical approach. Analysing a corpus of video-recorded French first-language lessons, we show how students sequentially organise laughter and smiling, and use them to preempt, solve or assess a problematic action. We also focus on the link between laughter and smiling in this context, showing how these resources differently index seriousness of trouble. The article highlights the fact that students adapt their interactional competences (i.e. laughter and smiles) to a specific institutional context (i.e. trouble in classroom interaction). Through laughter and smiling, students display the actions they consider appropriate or inappropriate for the classroom, and produce and monitor their institutional identities moment by moment. This is an illustration of institutional adjustment of interactional competences, since knowing how and when it is appropriate to laugh and smile in an institutional context is relevant for students not only at an educational level but also for their future integration into the workforce. This study also offers pedagogical outputs for teachers’ practice, since it helps them to better understand the interactional functions of students’ laughter/smiles and how students thus manage troubles in learning settings.

Taking French interactional style into the classroom

It is well known that different interactional styles can lead to pragmatic failure between speakers of different languages, often resulting in negative stereotyping. Even for highly competent second language speakers, misunderstandings can occur, since pragmatic values are so culturally embedded that speakers are generally unaware of them. In order to communicate effectively in the L2 therefore, pragmatic competence and interactional style must figure explicitly as part of second language learning and teaching. This article illustrates how authentic data can be exploited in the French language classroom to raise awareness of and teach aspects of French interactional style such as renchérir , interruptions, overlaps and disagreements, and encourage discussion of the cultural values behind them. Using the frameworks of Conversational Analysis and interactional sociolinguistics and the approaches outlined in Barraja-Rohan (2000) and Liddicoat (2008), this article provides ideas for using extracts of authentic conversations in classroom activities and assessment to promote pragmatic awareness, and interactional and intercultural competence.