This biannual course is taught on years 2014-2015, 2016-2017, ...
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The course addresses several themes which can be summarized through the following questions:
- What are the linguistic skills in French necessary to the academic and social success?
- What are the linguistic skills effectively taught in the French-teaching institutions?
- What are the factors which contribute to the mastering of these skills?
- What procedures (in terms of knowledge explanation and acquisition, assessment, etc.) are put into place by the teachers and with what results depending on the students' profiles?
- What is the knowledge brought by linguistic research about these skills?
- How can this knowledge be put at the service of French teaching, notably to improve the existing teaching methods?
The course aims at approaching the diverse linguistic questions related to the teaching of French (in its various forms, with a special attention to the teaching of French as a first language at the secondary school).
Three specific objectives are to be reached:
- Discovering the stakes involved in the mastering of French as a school language and the factors which favor or not this mastering.
- thinking about the way linguistic analyses can help with the learning and mastering of French in the school context.
- Bringing the students to think critically about the ways to develop adequately sensitivity to language problems in the secondary school.
The contribution of this Teaching Unit to the development and command of the skills and learning outcomes of the programme(s) can be accessed at the end of this sheet, in the section entitled “Programmes/courses offering this Teaching Unit”.
Assessment is based on a personnal research, relating to the analysis of a linguistic skill, chosen by each student, which is taught or presupposed in French lessons. This research will be the reported in a written assignement and will be presented during an oral exam, which will also give the teacher the opportunity to ask question on the whole content of the course.
The course is made up of lectures, sessions where students' work is analysed and presentations by students on the progress of the work they are doing for the examination.
In relation with its objectives, the course follows these steps:
- reading of scientific works allowing the students to understand the stakes of language learning and the implicit/explicit expectations of school and society in terms of language skills;
- analysis of actual linguistic practices of teachers and students in French-language classes, in a way to identify linguistic problems linked to the teaching of French;
- reflection about procedures to be implemented in a way to improve the teaching of French and the students' linguistic skills thanks to the knowledge of linguistics;
- "experimental" implementation and assessment of the procedures worked out by the students.
See the document entitled 'Bibliography' on the Moodle course website.
Support: selected bibliographical references.
