International conference, "Plurilingualism and Pluriculturalism in a Globalised World : Which Pedagogy?", Inalco Paris, 2010-06-18

Plurilingual and pluricultural didactics in a multilingual country : the case of French as

a foreign language teaching in Dutch-speaking Belgium

Juliette DELAHAIE

Laboratoire Modyco / UMR 7117

Université Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense

Introduction

Belgium : a multilingual country

But In Dutch-speaking Belgium : French is a foreign language.

Question : What is the situation of French in the foreign language teaching in Dutch-speaking Belgium?

Introduction

Structure : 1. Situation of multilingualism in Belgium2. The French teaching in Dutch-speaking Belgium :

- representations of French language at the institutional level

- FFL teachers’ sociolinguistic profile- French language approaches in the FFL

courses

International Conference, "Plurilingualism and Pluriculturalism in a Globalised World : Which Pedagogy?", Inalco Paris, 2010-06-18

I. Belgium, a multilingual and multicultural country, but unilingual Regions

Belgium : a Federal State (1993) with three official languages : French, Dutch and German.

But actually, these languages have not had the same status for a long time, and do not yet convey the same feelings and attitudes

1. Institutional and cultural change of French language in Belgium

French is historically dominant in Belgium :

In 1830, year of the independence of the Kingdom of Belgium, French is the only official language

It’s the language of the governing upper class, it enjoyed great prestige as the language of culture

Historical situation of Flemish

Flemish dialects, everyday language for the Flemish population, but without any prestige

But since the independence, Flemish movements refused to accept French as their first language

2. The uni/bilingual Regions of Belgium

In 1962 uni/bilingual « Regions » are created

Figure 1. The belgian provinces (source :http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Belgique_r%C3%A9gionale.png)

3. The belgian Communities

The three language Communities (1970) (Flemish/French/German-speaking Community) are oriented towards culture, education and the use of the relevant language

Today in Belgium, 58-59% of Flemish speakers, 40-41% of French speakers et 0,69% of German speakers

Figure 2. Map of the belgian communities (source : http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:BelgieGemeenschappenkart.png)

Conclusion

From one plurilingual context : French as the only official language/Dutch everyday dialects

To another plurilingual context : standard dutch as the only regional language/Dutch everyday dialects/French-speaking inhabitants

French : a foreign language taught at school

II. French language situation in the Dutch-speaking Belgium

1. Foreign language teaching in Dutch-speaking Belgium

- promotion of the multilingualism at school

- three foreign languages at school : French, English and German

II.1. The foreign language teaching in Dutch-speaking Belgium : the promotion of plurilingualism

French institutional advantage :

The only « first foreign language », at the primary school, four hours a week

English psycho-social advantage : an international language, vector of teenager culture, and out of the national linguistics conflict

See Housen et al. (2003)

II.2. Plurilingual and pluricultural competence among FFL teachers

The learner in plurilingual didactics : a plurilingual and pluricultural competence far from the native speaker competence

The teacher in plurilingual and pluricultural didactics : The native speaker teacher model called into question? Which competence for teachers? Which approaches of the language teaching?

II.2. Plurilingual and pluricultural competence among FFL teachers in Dutch-speaking Belgium

The data : three FFL teachers at the Diskmuide secondary school (Dutch-speaking Belgium), second and third cycle, learners between 14 and 18 years

Registrations now part of the Lancom corpus :

http://bach.arts.kuleuven.be

Teacher’s name

Mme G M. L Mme C

Registered lessons

Three lessons : evaluations of role-plays « at the travel agency »

Four lessons : evaluations of role-plays « at the travel agency »

- lesson 1: evaluations of role-plays « at the travel agency »

- lesson 2 : talks about poetry by the learners

- cours 3 : questionary about a literary text

Time 53’41’’ 91’20’’ 105’54’’

Words 5.865 8.053 12.242

The data

Results associated with other studies

- D. Flament (2001), Flament & Debrock (1996), studies of the FFL teachers of the Lancom corpus

- Hendrix, Housen, Pierrard et al. (2002, 2003, 2005), Vrije Universiteit Brussel : a systematic comparison of Teaching and Learning French and English in the secondary schools of Dutch-speaking Belgium, about their degree of communicativity

II.2. Representations of French among FFL teachers : different points of view

French, a language of prestige

- for Mrs C : native French speaker of Brussel, interest for literature and grammatical correction, (Belgium is the country of Goosse et Grévisse), less interest for Spoken French because too casual

- for Mrs D., studied by Flament (2001), native Flemish-speaker, same approach

French as an everyday language

- for Mr L et Mrs G, native Flemish-speakers, interest for the characteristics of Spoken French, as factor of motivation for the learners, as response of their problem, comunicating in Spoken French

II.2. A different relationship to Dutch and dialects

Dutch dialect as the basis of cultural identity

- for Mrs G et Mr L : standard Dutch and Flemish dialect which is shared with their learners

Dutch as a foreign language

- for Mrs C : she has learned Dutch, but not the dialect

II.3. Plurilingual and pluricultural Didactics, and FFL courses

A. Languages spoken in FFL courses Mr L uses Contrastive Didactics : a way of teaching

comparing French with Dutch, to stress differencies and similarities between the two languages :

L- […] euh je crois que ce sont des choses qui reviennent tout le temps = surtout parce que le néerlandais est différent du français par exemple le premier point porte sur les dates = (prénom) que faut-il dire = je viens de eerste novembre

E- je viens la première novembreL- on dit le premier novembre ou donc le premier = c’est ça = par contre (prénom) de

elfde december = E- la onze décem le onze décembre L- le onze = décembre donc on dit le premier mais le onze mais pas le onzième par

exemple oui ? […](Mr L, evaluation of play-role)

II.3. Plurilingual and pluricultural Didactics, and FFL courses

A. Languages spoken in FFL classes Mrs C and Mrs D use Monolingual Didactics

(Flament, 2001) : the standard Dutch as the first language, for literal translations Dutch/French

C- […] et puis euh de prijs wat is de prijs?

E- quel est le prix?

C- le prix hm = […]

(Mrs C, evaluation of role-play)

II.3. Plurilingual and pluricultural didactics, and FFL courses

B. Competitivity/communicativity of English and French

Housen & Pierrard studies (2003) : English courses in secondary schools of Dutch-speaking Belgium are statistically more communicative than French courses : a negative effect on learners attitude and motivations for French, and then English prefered to French

Do our data confirm these results ? yes, but they propose another way of teaching and forming FFL teachers too

II.3.b. Competitivity/communicativity of English and French

A form-focused teaching, sometimes at the expense of communicativity

- Mrs C : pays attention to formal French, writing French, not to the characteristics of Spoken FrenchC- […] euh au début vous avez dit à quel hôtel avous pensé c’est quoi ça à quel hôtel avous pensé = essayez de vous corriger = à quel hôtel a = vous = pensé = à quel? E- à l’hôtel C- voilà à quel hôtel = si on a vous on aura évidemment = avez-vous pensé oui?(Mrs C, evaluation of role-play)

- It’s the same for Mrs D studied by D. Flament (2001)

II.3.b. Competitivity/communicativity of English and French

A communicative teaching of French Mrs G wants to teach the characteristics of Spoken

French G- […] petit détail (prénom) si tu donnes ton numéro de téléphone qu’est-ce qu’on dit? […]comment est-ce qu’on dit? Mijn telefoon is?

E- mon numéro de téléphone c’est

G- c’est le j’avais pas entendu le ce hein oui tu l’as dit j’avais pas compris vous notez encore une fois mon numéro de téléphone c’est le et pas est le hein il faut noter le c’est […]

(Mrs G, evaluation of play-role)

Conclusion

A pluriligual and pluricultural Didactics in Dutch-speaking Belgium is possible - the promotion of the plurilingualism in Dutch-speaking Belgium

- some ways of teaching show connections between languages, and are as communicative as English courses

But problems are remaining : conflicts between languages, which are sometimes unconsciously relayed by teachers

REFERENCES

CORNETTE, G. (1995) : « Stratégies communicatives en Français Langue Etrangère : analyses linguistique, didactique et interactionnelle », mémoire dactylographié, K.U. Leuven, Leuven (Belgique).

FLAMENT-BOISTRANCOURT, D. (2001) : « Jeux de rôle et discours d'enseignants en Belgique néerlandophone : analyse d'un double bind ordinaire », Langue française, 131, Paris, Larousse, p.66-88.

HOUSEN, A, JANSSENS, S, PIERRARD, M. (2003) : Le français face à l’anglais dans les écoles secondaires en Flandre, Bruxelles, Duculot.

KEMPS, N., HOUSEN, A., PIERRARD, M. (2007) : « La communication en classe de langue : différences de contextes d’enseignement entre le FLE et l’ALE », in Actes du colloque « Enseigner les structures langagières en FLE », Nantes-Bruxelles, en ligne.