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Didactics and practice of spoken French as the mother tongue

lrom2950  2024-2025  Louvain-la-Neuve

Didactics and practice of spoken French as the mother tongue
7.00 credits
45.0 h + 30.0 h
Q1 and Q2
Teacher(s)
Language
French
Prerequisites
To start the observatory teaching practice the same year.
Main themes
The course will take bearings on the cardinal questions that every French teacher has. These questions can be for instance: what is at stake ? What are the objectives and the tools to teach French ? What are the teaching and assessment methods ? ,.... The conceptual and methodological outlines will also be seen, allowing the teacher to develop the pupils' reading, writing and oral expression skills, following the requirment of the school. It will also give the pupils some reference knowledge in the language and literature field. The course will also present some entire didactic sequences, which will illustrate the diversity, complementarity and coherence of the activities, that need to be implemented when teaching French. These different objectives will be based on a bibliographical system of reference and on numerous stimulating documents.
Thanks to practical work sessions the students, in small groups, will try out :
1° several activities and different tools to teach French;
2° the different basic constituents of oral expression (voice, rhythm, speech articulation, diction, enunciation situation...) and subtle oral expression skills (expressive reading, conferences, oral report, verbal interactions).
Learning outcomes

At the end of this learning unit, the student is able to :

1 1° To initiate, theoretically and through practice, to the notions, methods and disciplinary tools neccesary to be a French teacher for French as a first language.
2° To allow the command of different kinds of oral expressions by systematically trying them out .
 
Content
1. Didactics of French’ course (45 hrs)
Based on the results of research into the didactics of French and the educational sciences, this course looks at the foundations, principles, systems and tools for teaching French in upper secondary education (both transitional and qualifying). The course is structured around three themes: the didactics of reading and literature; the didactics of writing; and the didactics of speaking. The course also addresses issues relating to the diversity of school audiences, the appropriation of reference frameworks and teaching programmes, an introduction to the tools of the French teacher and the assessment of learning.
2. Didactics of French’ seminar (15h)
The seminar-exercise sessions in small groups cover the following topics: how to start a French lesson? How to get students to read and write literary and functional/documentary texts? How to use images and sound? How to use film? How to prepare and evaluate a teaching unit? Etc.
3. Oral practice exercises (15h)
Exercise sessions dedicated to the practice of orality will focus on three professional skills of the French teacher: reading aloud - particularly of versified text -, the techniques of ‘storytelling’ and the techniques of presentation.
Teaching methods
To achieve its objectives, the ‘Didactics of French’ course :
  • takes the concerns of beginning teachers as the starting point for professional development;
  • adopts methods designed to encourage this development (for example, writing one's autobiography as a reader and/or writer in order to reflect on one's future role as a reading and/or writing teacher; reconstructing a set of instructions, an approach or the stages of a system based on an activity tried out in class or the observation of filmed sessions; analysing pupils' work; training in the formulation of feedback, etc.);
  • is based on real-life situations (experimentation with systems or activities) and concrete cases (learners' productions, teaching documents, films of class sessions, critical incidents, etc.) to encourage students, on their own or in small groups, to observe, describe, analyse and conceptualise on the basis of professional and scientific literature;
  • proposes individual or group work aimed at reflexivity and the transfer of learning to partially new situations, in relation to the demands of the profession of French teacher.
The ‘Oral practice’ exercises use autoscopy (video); they aim to encourage students to make a self-diagnosis that will enable them to progress. 
Supervision: The ‘Didactics of French’ tp sessions will be supervised by teaching assistants who will share their experience of teaching French in various branches of secondary education. The ‘Oral practice’ sessions will be supervised by teaching assistants specialising in oral practice.
Evaluation methods
The unit is assessed at the June or September sessions, according to the same procedures.  
1° For the didactics of French (course and seminar sessions): written work presenting a didactic sequence constructed from elements borrowed from different parts of the course and exercises, analysed syllabuses and personal reading taken from the course bibliography (40% of the mark). Complementary oral examination on the justification of the choices made in the written work and the mastery of the course content (40% of the mark). Several moments during the course and the seminar are devoted to the progressive accompaniment of the personal work on the basis of which the learning outcomes are assessed: the chosen subject must be presented for validation by mid-course at the latest; the scenarisation of the didactic device is the subject of an intermediate formative assessment.
2° For practical oral work: presentation to the group of two short oral performances which will have been announced and practised during the previous sessions. The student will then have a debriefing interview with the moderator, in which he or she will develop a critical reflection on his or her oratory skills by situating them within his or her personal background and professional project (20% of the mark).
In written productions, generative artificial intelligence (AI) must be used responsibly and in accordance with the practices of academic and scientific integrity, This means that all sources must be cited in compliance with bibliographic referencing standards and that the possible use of an AI must be explicitly indicated (this means indicating all the parts where an AI has been used and specifying, for example in a footnote, whether the AI was used to search for information, to write the text or to correct it). 
Other information
Teaching materials : the students receive from the very start of the course some notes collecting methodological suggestions on different theories of teaching French as well as bibliographical orientations. They also receive a copy of the slides and documents used at each session and an analysis grid containing the constituents of the oral expression. Others : The practical work sessions of French didactics are given by pedagogical collaborators, coming from different types of secondary schools. The sessions of oral expression exercises are supported by pedagogical collaborators specialised in oral expression activities.
Online resources
Use of the Moodle platform is required from the start of the course (course code LROM2950). 
Bibliography
Principal ouvrage de référence : SIMARD, Claude, DUFAYS, Jean-Louis, DOLZ, Joaquim et GARCIA-DEBANC, Claudine, Didactique du français langue première, Bruxelles, De Boeck, 2010. Les étudiants reçoivent en outre un vadémécum bibliographique de 80 pages qui présente les principales ressources relatives aux différents objets de la didactique du français.
Faculty or entity


Programmes / formations proposant cette unité d'enseignement (UE)

Title of the programme
Sigle
Credits
Prerequisites
Learning outcomes
Teacher Training Certificate (upper secondary education) - French and Romance Languages and Literatures

Master [120] in French and Romance Languages and Literatures : General