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Galina BOUBNOVA (Moscou, Russie)Phonetic correctness: the case of the teaching of French to Russophone learners and Russian to French learners2006, Vol. XI-1, pp. 7-19
In learning the phonetics of a foreign language an adult student takes in new sounds still sustaining the definitive influence of the phonological categorization of his or her mother tongue. In Russia phonetic correction mainly makes use of such methods as visual display as well as tactile and motive drills aimed at developing articulation. By making pronunciation subordinate to myoneural control that procedure virtually disregards the prosodic component of the speech. Teaching foreign language prosody as presented in this article is based on the fact that a student cannot only hear but also see the appropriate audio signal. The use of the visual channel enhances work on the prosody of a language to be studied both at the stage of its perception and at the stage of production.
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Piet DESMET (Lille 3)Teaching and learning languages in the digital era: recent tendencies and challenges2006, Vol. XI-1, pp. 119-138
Due to the rise of the digital era, ICT has become one of the basic teaching tools of any language teacher and the language classroom, or at least part of it, has turned into a digital environment. In this contribution, we comment on seven tendencies which have emerged recently in the domain of computer assisted language learning (CALL). Each tendency is illustrated through a selection of recent projects realized within our research group ALT, Research Center on CALL.
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Martine DREYFUS (Montpellier 3)Teaching and learning of French in Africa: balance and development in 40 years of research2006, Vol. XI-1, pp. 73-84
This paper shows how research on variation in spoken French and studies on languages in contact in West Africa have changed attitudes towards the French language and its teaching. There has been an ever increasing amount of research interest in acquisition of French in Africa over the last years and these studies might also have changed attitudes and perceptions towards learning French. The current research is focused on the analysis of classroom interactions. Both the constitution of a large corpus on acquisition and learning of French and the prospects for a revival or change in teaching methods and training are related here.
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Marie-Laure ELALOUF (Cergy-Pontoise)Connectors in French ministerial directives and textbooks (French L1/English L2)2011, Vol. XVI-2, pp. 121-140
In French L1 syllabuses, the term connecteur is defined according to semantic criteria and covering invariable words, and even syntagms commuting with adverbial phrases. They are given in lists and thus cannot be really used to interpret L1 texts.L2 learners are not made aware of the functioning of these heterogeneous L2 units, which makes their task even more arduous. The L1 filter compounded by limited awareness of the functioning of L1 thus leads to one-to-one relations that hinder L2 skills especially when items learnt by rote are artificially inserted instead of being used to connect ideas. A unified and contrastive grammatical terminology would allow an efficient metalinguistic awareness.
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Danièle FLAMENT-BOISTRANCOURT (Paris X-Nanterre)Learning/acquiring foreign languages: new tendencies2006, Vol. XI-1, pp. 5-6
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Juana GIL FERNÁNDEZ (Madrid, Espagne)The teaching of pronunciation: the widening gap between fundamental research and classroom practice2012, Vol. XVII-1, pp. 67-80
In recent times, in the academic field related to the training of L2 pronunciation teachers, the already existing gap between fundamental research and the application of its results in the classroom has widened. In some degree, this has been a consequence of that training being focused on methodological aspects more than on the intrinsic knowledge of the subject to be taught. In this article, on the basis of two concrete examples, the need for keeping pronunciation teachers permanently informed about the findings of the basic research in phonetics / phonology is defended as a means to achieve a very fruitful interaction between the two sides, theoretical ad applied, of the discipline.
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Adam KILGARRIFF (Brighton, Grande-Bretagne)Corpora and Language Learning with the Sketch Engine and SKELL2015, Vol.XX-1, pp. 61-80
We introduce the idea of using corpora – the linguist’s name for ‟big data” – in language research, and sketch its history, first in linguistics in general, then in language learning and teaching.We then take a careful look at the hazards of using corpora in language learning, and arrive at some maxims for when and how they have a place: firstly,don’t scare the students; then, use the corpus when the dictionary does not tell you enough, and moreover, disguise the corpus as a dictionary.We then introduce Sketch Engine, and show how it implements these ideas through SKELL, its language-learner interface.We show how corpora can be used, both in the classroom, and in the background, for syllabus design, where we have used corpora of learner output to identify patterns of overuse and underuse, with implications for what needs teaching.
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Marjan KRAFFT-GROOT (Lille 3)Euroregions and language teaching: the case of Dutch in Northern France2006, Vol. XI-1, pp. 61-71
The development of Dutch in the North of France over the centuries and the teaching of this language are closely linked. Because of a near lack of a language policy for Dutch in the North of France, the number of learners of Dutch in that area remains very low. Moreover, the common history of the three countries involved (France, Belgium and the Netherlands) is not perceived in the same way. That is why the teacher of Dutch L2 in the North of France has to put the languages he teaches in a historical and cultural context, without giving any personal judgement. The learner of Dutch in the North of France has to prepare himself to co-operate with his neighbour across the border. Only such an approach and an adequate economic policy relative to the importance of learning Dutch will allow the teaching of Dutch to take off in the North of France.
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Edith NICOLAS (CNRS)Teaching disappearing languages: the case of Australia2000, Vol. V-1, pp. 61-69
Numerous initiatives are currently underway in Australia to try to prevent the dramatic loss of traditional Aboriginal languages. Teaching these languages at school is one of them. However, this process of language revival raises issues that go beyond the pedagogical framework: Is there still enough data available to save all the languages? Are there enough trained staff to provide quality teaching? Following a general presentation of these issues, I account of my own endeavour to produce a teacher's guide of Bardi, an Aboriginal language of Western Australia. Although no one doubts the benefits of saving endangered languages, the issues that crop up once "in the field" are not the only ones that might have been expected.
Language teaching