Aims

To develop students' competence concerning foreign language teaching and assessment processes and to let them make coherent choices when they reflect on such questions as (e.g.):
- How does language learning take place ?
- What can we do to help pupils / young adults to learn a language better ?
- How can teaching objectives be set ?
- In which ways are acquisition and learning processes complementary ?
- What is the role of "tasks" in language learning/teaching ?
- What are the essential principles and tools for foreign language assessment ?
- How have these questions been answered in the past ?

Main themes

This course is intended to stimulate refection on objectives, methods, teaching techniques and assessment of foreign languages.
During this course, the following aspects will receive special attention :
- Learner's characteristics (age, socio-cultural background, motivating factors, cognitive and affective differences, learning style, …)
- Methodological "options" for teaching and learning foreign languages (The so-called translation vs. direct methods, the audio-lingual and SGAV-methods, the Receptive Way, the Humanistic Approaches, the Threshold Levels and the Communicative Approach(es).
- The role of tasks in language learning, teaching and assessment;
- The school curricula according to the official documents ("Décret mission", "Socles de compétences et compétences terminales");
- The foreign language teaching programs as defined by the FESEC will be compared with similar publications by the Council of Europe like e.g. the Threshold Level(s) - 1990 - and the "Common European Framework of reference for Languages : Learning, teaching and assessment".

Content and teaching methods

This course is intended to stimulate reflection on objectives and methods of teaching and assessing foreign languages. Special attention will be paid to learners' characteristics and to the different methods and approaches which have had their hour of glory in the past century.
The analysis of the official school curricula will be proposed in the light of the "Common European Framework of reference for Languages" (Strasbourg, Council of Europe, 2000).

Other information (prerequisite, evaluation (assessment methods), course materials recommended readings, ...)

- A syllabus will be at the students' disposal; yet, personal notes will be necessary, which implies the students' attendance;
- Prerequisite : students will be asked to do some further reading and to consult specific sites (a.o. the site of the Fédération du Secrétariat de l'Enseignement Catholique and the site(s) of the Council of Europe where specific information can be downloaded : http://www.segec.be/FESeC/Secteurs/LanguesModernes/index.htm - http://culture2.coe.int/portfolio/documents/cadrecommun.pdf http://www.coe.int/T/E/Cultural_Co-operation/education/Languages/Language_Policy /Portfolio/portfolio.asp#TopOfPage.

- Assessment
The oral examination consists of two parts :
(i) the assimilation of general and specific notions, principles, objectives, teaching methods and approaches presented during the course will be checked through questions asked by the assessor;
(ii) students will be invited to present a paper on some of the issues tackled during the course (a list of themes will be suggested during the course).

Other credits in programs