2000 Porcher Faro-Hanoun-51-100 en

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my"6 would have said Sartre about an almost equally

sordid Nizan affair, who hastened to condemn what they
did not know and which far exceeded them in influence,
and the trick was played. I don't even think that there
were any real prebends in this affair. We know that, for
academics, preventing the neighbour from doing
something new is experienced with an orgasmic
pleasure, greater than that of doing it oneself. That was
the price and that's enough.
2. THE ENTRY AT THE PERIOD

Documento acquistato da () il 2023/05/02.
In 1971, the Council of Europe set up a working group,

made up of experts from various countries, to establish a
"system of credit-based language teaching using various
media". With hindsight, we see this as the key date
when the new era of language teaching/learning was
ushered in. In France, this expression was rigorously
deprived of any meaning.
It is the learner who learns, and he is the only one in this
case, the efficient teacher having to be content (but the
role is much more difficult to fulfil than the traditional
one) with helping the learner to make his own way. To
equate teaching with learning is therefore to mix carp
and rabbit, since we cannot be both at the same time,
and we would first have to prove, at least, as
RICHTERICH once rightly wrote, that teaching does not
prevent learning (which is far from being proven).
The official use of the media, instigated by a highly
reputed international body, was a kind of trumpet blast in
the serene sky of education.
6 Preface to Aden Arabie by Paul NIZAN, Maspéro, 1961.
51
which still saw itself as the only possible route to
learning. Very quickly, the media were abandoned
(apart from a television series called "follow me" for
English which, powerfully significant, Pierre
DESGRAUPES, the so-called great Pierre
DESGRAUPES, hastened to interrupt in France when he
took over at Antenne 2).
This renunciation of the media spoke volumes about the
fear of educationalists and their deep, literally obtuse
conviction that they were still the holders of modernity.
The fact remains that this group gave impetus to the
setting up - the making up, if you like - of a series of
'Threshold Levels', the first two of which were English
and French, new descriptions of languages according to

the principles of enunciative linguistics and pragmatics.
From then on, the interactivity that underpins the
teacher/learner exchange is much more firmly
established: the learner is the effective, active manager
and initiator of his or her own learning. They are
considered to be fundamentally autonomous, in charge
of themselves, and Henri HOLEC, the director of the
CRAPEL in Nancy, was asked to draw up a study on the
imperative methodological need to move towards learner
autonomy as the only guarantee of the possibility of
effective and valid learning.
The basis of the "Council of Europe" project came from
the Anglo-Saxon world: real teaching had to be
"learner-centred", not subject-centred. Quoting Stuart
Mill, without quoting him ("to teach mathematics to
John, it is certainly necessary to know mathematics, but
it is indispensable to know John"), the copemic
revolution in language learning was launched.
52
In order for the learner to be at the centre of the learning
p r o c e s s , it was necessary to carry out the following
"This is done before any programme is drawn up, and
then regularly throughout the teaching process. Needs
change along the way, particularly under the influence of
the results already achieved. Constant adjustments are
therefore needed to ensure that the focus remains on the
learner. René RICHTERICH7 was such a master
craftsman, and Louis PORCHER developed the concept of
language needs in school contexts.
A regressive tendency had to be constantly combated: the
idea that self-motivation is reserved for adults who are not
subject to school conditions, and that needs analysis itself
i s crushed under the weight of the education s y s t e m ' s

programmes. The two studies set out to show that this is
not the case.
The whole of this pedagogical approach was aimed at
equipping the learner with genuine "communicative
competence", and from then on the project was considered
to be t h e basis of a "communicative approach" (a term
which has become almost official), on the clear
understanding that, by definition, there are as many
communicative approaches as there are learners (or, at the
very least, groups of learners) and that the expression can
only be used in the plural or preceded by the indefinite
article.
The impact of these highly cohesive analyses-
the last few years, was immense, in Euro
' Identifying the language needs of adults learning a foreign language,

Strasbourg, 1977, Council of Europe (in French and English).
Les besoins langagiers en contextes scolaires, Strasbourg, 1979,
Council of Europe (in French and English).
53
pe and the world. They undoubtedly transformed the
vision of language teaching among the most dynamic
teachers, and gave rise to countless textbooks (the first
of which, for French as a foreign language, were
Archipel and Cartes sur table). Since then, no textbook
would dream of ignoring the fact that it is based on a
"communicative approach".
2.1. Universitarisation of French as a foreign

language in France
In 1981, a Socialist President arrived in France. Before
he was elected, French as a foreign language was being
promoted in a number of universities, sometimes taking

over, as at Paris III, a long-standing but not nationally
recognised tradition of training "teachers of French for
foreigners", which conferred no right to any kind of title.
The overall situation was conducive to a new
legitimisation.
As soon as he entered the Rue de Grenelle, the new
Minister for Education, Alain SAVARY, rightly
understood nothing of the anarchic proliferation of
unofficial (in the eyes of the law) courses in French as a
foreign language. He decided to set up a commission,
under the political responsibility of Romain
GAIGNARD, his closest colleague, to take a snapshot of
the university landscape in this area and to suggest ways
of putting things in order.
It was not politically possible to bypass the official
authorities. This is why the Commission was chaired by
an Inspecteur Général de l'Education Nationale, Jean
AUBA (hence the name of the AUBA Commission),
then Director of the CIEP in Sèvres, and therefore fully
involved in the world of the French language.
54
foreigners. Jean AUBA behaved like a man of
exemplary responsibility and culture, and had the
extreme intelligence to allow ten academics around him
to work freely. Louis PORCHER was elevated to the
rank of main pillar and appointed as Romain
GAIGNARD's scientific adviser for FLE.
The commission worked hard and submitted its report,
drawn up by Louis Porcher, to the Minister in April
19829 . It proposed three measures, only two of which
were accepted and implemented: the creation of a
Délégation Générale à l'Enseignement du Français
Langue Etrangère (DENATEFLE) (General Delegation
for the Teaching of French as a Foreign Language) was
rejected; the creation of a university curriculum (full

bachelor's and master's degrees, defined from the outset
as national diplomas, which represented a real
revolution); and finally, the creation of a diploma in
knowledge of French, reserved for foreigners, which
would bear the official stamp of the French Republic: it
would be split into two: the DELF (Diplôme élé-
mentaire de langue française, now the diplôme d'étu-
des de langue française), and the DALF (diplôme
approfondi de langue française). This double diploma
would be divided into ten credit units, each of which
would lead to the final award of its own diploma, part of
the total diploma. Today, there are hundreds of
thousands of candidates for this diploma all over the
world, and the number of countries involved is growing
all the time to over one hundred.
The university curricula themselves obviously included
In addition to linguistics (which had to be negotiated...),
the course also included didactics, cultural anthropology
(introduced by sociologist Louis PORCHER) and
communication. A teaching course of 150
Etudes de Linguistique Appliquée, n° 64, Didier Erudition, "Priorité

FLE", coordinated by Robert GALISSON and Louis PORCHER.
The latter's article deals specifically with this whole question.
hours was officially required for this master's degree. The
Master's degree was immediately recognised as
equivalent in dignity to any other national Master's
degree, and opened in 1984. In the very first year, more
than thirty universities officially applied to the Ministry
for authorisation ('habilitation') to award this master's
degree. This just goes to show how pressing the needs
felt by students were. Louis PORCHER was given the
task of dealing with each application, given his position
at the Ministry.
Alain SAVARY's aim was not only to organise chaos,
he was also seeking to recover his legitimate power to
train permanent teachers sent abroad, which until then
had been at the discretion of the Ministry of Foreign

Affairs. This was a usurpation of power that the
Minister for Education did not accept. He was determined
to reclaim his responsibilities.
In 1985, after just one year, the University of Paris III
created the first DEA (Diplôme d'Etudes Approfondies)
and Doctorat in "Didactics of Languages and Cultures",
which was only logical. At the same time, Louis
PORCHER, while participating fully in this DEA
(Diplôme d'Etudes Approfondies), as he was working at
Paris III, realised that many of the students in the FLE
master's programme were not destined to teach this
subject, as had been obvious to him from the start.
It therefore decided to create a DESS (Diplôme d'Etudes
Supérieurs Spécialisées) in "training of trainers (not
teachers) in French as a foreign language", also with a 5-
year higher education qualification, i.e. a postgraduate
degree, but without the option of a doctorate. This new
diploma was designed to focus on publishing, the media
and language policies.
This one, in the field, was completely ignored. Nobody
knew what it was. Apart from a few people,
56
There were brutal reactions to the compulsory entry of
companies into the world of FLE, and to professional
and teaching placements. Every attempt was made to
prevent the birth of this diploma, which was seen as
exotic. But the Ministry granted it accreditation for four
years, and from then on the opponents lost. The DESS
opened in 1985. It was immediately a runaway success,
for the simple reason (obvious to anyone who wasn't
blindly trapped in the straitjacket of applied linguistics
and didactics) that the students, who were obliged to
spend several months in companies, found it much
easier to find a job after completing the course.
Today, there are many DESS in FLE, set up by the same
people who sneered in 1985 at Louis PORCHER's

initiative. They were wrong in their analysis, which was
nothing new. The sector as a whole has developed
considerably, everywhere, and this is not at all a surprise
because there is a strong demand from students and you
don't have to be a rocket scientist to understand this. It's
worth noting, with a smile of satisfaction, that this
successful new course has led to the creation of a very
large number (almost 150) of university teaching posts
(lecturers and professors) and that the discipline is now
well established.
The very people who were crying out and doing
everything they could to prevent the success of this
programme are now working in jobs to which they
would never have been entitled if they had been left to
their own devices, and especially if they had been
imprisoned in their rigidity and immobility. They are
profiteers, as there always are, and seeing them in the
flesh is rather amusing, except for the students and the
discipline itself, which they use rather than serve.
57
can see that, as usual, the forces of conservatism have
prevailed, because linguistics, which loses students every
year, has practically confiscated FLE, which it professes
to despise. It leads bored students down a blind alley,
except that it unintentionally makes it easier for them to
go abroad. Despite its predictable bureaucratic
reluctance, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has found
itself obliged, over the years, to give priority to selecting
teachers of French as a foreign language for foreign
countries, because the countries themselves and their
institutions immediately perceived the relevance and
fruitfulness of such training for their own needs.
This universitarisation has been accompanied by a
remarkable decentralisation, since universities

throughout France now award these diplomas. The role
of the central institutions (BELC and CREDIF) has been
transformed by this, and none of them have understood
it: they have therefore disappeared from the landscape,
which is a pity because they had a specific function to
fulfil, which they were unable to invent within this new
landscape.
The "sciences of language", the official name for the
field of linguistics, have been reduced by common
consent to linguistics in the restrictive, purely
departmental sense of the term. It's hardly surprising,
then, that their star no longer shines brightly. They have
failed, through incompetence and inertia, to work
towards establishing a rigorous language policy. They
will remain by the side of this path too, as will didactics,
which has missed all the trains. A linguistic and cultural
policy will inevitably be built without them.
58
2.2. A genuine foreign language policy?
French as a foreign language at university, which is now
almost exclusively linguistic, is in a state of flat encepha-
logram. It has removed cultural dimensions from its
concerns, with the exception of literature in some cases,
turning students into blind professional service providers
who are virtually mono-specialists, even though the
priority being developed at the moment is a heightened
cultural requirement which is, quite normally, at the heart
of today's multiplied exchanges.
School exchanges first and foremost, of course, but also
tourist exchanges for adults (which are becoming more
and more diversified and which, let's not forget, rank
France first in the world) and professional exchanges,

which are multiplying. In all these cases, mutual cultural
understanding is much more difficult to achieve and
incomparably more important than linguistic
communication.
Teachers of French as a foreign language are being
replaced by private structures which, almost by
definition, are largely unaffected by language policy. It's
not true to say that the French language is weakening all
over the world: it's French cooperation that's declining
because users aren't interested in it, due to its
ineffectiveness and conservatism, and they go elsewhere
to learn French by other means.
So what should an external language policy be?
Firstly, a link between language and culture (the latter
being considered as both classical culture and
anthropological culture).
4 A flexible, non-dogmatic approach to teaching. It is
up to the national authorities to define these guidelines,
and it is up to us to help them do so.
59
4 Ensure the attractiveness and promotion of French, in
particular by demonstrating its potential usefulness.
4 Define a line of analysis and effective behaviour that
doesn't change with the wind, the situation or personal
moods.
0 Ensuring reciprocity, which is absolutely necessary,
with foreign languages in France. Language policy in
relation to French as a foreign language is closely linked
to language policy in relation to foreign languages in
France. This obvious fact is, to put it mildly, only a
guess.
G Provide a range of providers for the different groups
interested in learning French (in terms of the age of the
audience, their concerns, their objectives, and the time

and money they can devote to learning).
G Linking foreign language policy with the activities of the -
French companies that set up abroad or with their
transactional concerns with the countries in question.
4 That the political authorities establish the
arrangements for interdepartmental cooperation, given
the evidence that all sectors of society are involved.
4 Coordinate national action with territorial, regional and
local initiatives (i.e. encourage the different regions to
each establish a genuine linguistic and cultural policy).
9 Train teachers, parents, pupils and social partners in
comparative education, which is now essential as
internationalisation develops. This subject will be dealt
with in more detail above, as it is an essential issue.
G Above all, we need to coordinate with the media,
which, if we don't watch out, will gradually take over
the entire role of the media.
60
partnership with them is in our mutual interest.
4 Articulate the internationalising discussion of the
action and the process of emergence and consolidation of
the identity heritage. Unity, in short, in variety, harmony
in singularities.
We are a long way from this set of measures and this
coherence, which do not present any notable difficulties.
This essential area has been neglected, even though it
can be a real source of fertility for the country. French
as a foreign language is crumbling, and the situation
absolutely must be rectified. Let's take a look at Spain, for
example, which, w i t h t h e help of American
hispanidad, is certainly expanding rapidly, and its
language is making headway almost everywhere.

This language policy must be implemented from the
earliest age. It is now a 'natural' dimension of
contemporary education and, as such, should permeate
the whole of education. In this respect, teacher training
certainly needs a major overhaul (see below), because
teachers hold one of the keys to the attitude called for by
the zeitgeist. The aim is by no means to standardise
training at a global level (an undertaking that is not only
impossible but totally absurd), but to ensure that
teachers can work together from one country to another
and are in a position to cooperate (first and foremost
between teachers) to work towards both opening up
children's minds and making them aware of where they
belong. Voluntarism is essential here, because, let us
repeat, the establishment of a language policy is first
and foremost a matter of voluntarism.
61
EDUCATION
Even though the French state has enacted few language

laws, these laws seem to have achieved a consensus
among the population, given the French people's
attachment to their language. This gives rise to epic
battles of the pen and the tongue, where conservative
essentialists fight over respect for the norm against

modernists who insist on the need for change and on the
fact that it is the speakers who make the language, even
if it is the academies that define its contours.
Schools are at the heart of all these struggles. Some see
it as lax - "our children are no longer being taught
French properly", "we're speaking more and more
badly". In contrast to this self-flagellation and guilt-
ridden discourse, others argue in favour of adaptation
and flexibility: "languages change, so do audiences, and
long live cross-fertilisation". What's more, the great
tragedy of school is that - fortunately in this country -
everyone has been there, everyone has their say (!) about
the language and its teaching, and, of course, everyone
has their magic potion to provide. And to recall his
(obviously successful!) passage through a school that
should remain today a carbon copy of what it once was.
The State finds here a consensual theme to assert its
power or, as Gramsci pointed out, to mask social
problems with a linguistic law,
63
or political power. In their struggle for power, people use
languages as banners, and the latest events in recent
European history confirm this observation.
The publication of a language law cannot be understood
if it is not contextualised in the geopolitical panorama of
the moment of its promulgation. Thus, in 1994, France
was in a period of political cohabitation, after the
Maastricht referendum on the European Union and the
powers conferred by the States on Brussels had been
narrowly won by the 'yes' supporters, in a context of
globalisation that has already been announced and is
already a reality, since the Gatt agreements on the free
movement of goods have just been signed, and in a
worrying domestic economic situation that points to the

major social conflicts of 1995, the legislator is invited to
consider the French language and the means of
protecting its speakers.
Was it urgent? Wasn't this the way to reassure
The aim of this project is to create a new language, to
create a new culture, to create a new identity for an
electorate frightened by the European Union, to close
ranks around the sharing of a highly symbolic cultural
asset, to confirm linguistic and cultural roots, to
anticipate future struggles for influence against "all-
English", to guard against the ambitions of "modern"
languages (0 ), the defence of which was provided for by
the Council of Europe?
Probably. It is also probable that in certain areas, such as
consumer protection or the protection of employees of
foreign companies, the assistance of the law was
indispensable. Even though it was easier to protect
consumers and employees through language legislation
than to reduce unemployment and job insecurity
through social and solidarity-based legislation..,
'0 "modimes" refers to languages that are "less widely used".

64
Was language teaching more at risk than in the past?
Probably not. But no one can prepare a language law
without addressing the teaching of the language in
question. This is why Article II of Law no. 94-665 of 4
August 1994 on the use of the French language
addresses the issue of teaching French and foreign
languages in schools.
The first part reiterates that only French is accepted as
the language of examinations, competitions and publica-
tions, theses and dissertations. The second part simply
recalls an article of the French Education Act no. 89-186
of 10 July 1989, which states: "Mastery of the French
language and knowledge of two other languages are
among the fundamental objectives of education".

These objectives, defined as fundamental, have long
been present in the French education system. Along
with mathematics, they even form the foundations of the
system, since "writing, reading [French] and
understanding" were already the objectives of Jules
Ferry's public education policy.
The study of the mother tongue is clearly essential to
the education of pupils in that it provides them with a
command of oral and written expression, enables them
to approach organised knowledge and contributes to
their training as citizens belonging to a common culture.
Pupils have access to literary works from primary
school onwards, and their mastery of expression,
whether free or organised, is an imperative if they are to
integrate successfully into society.
As well as acquiring the language and understanding,
analysing and interpreting texts, which are gradually
introduced throughout the school year, students are
encouraged to produce their own texts by visiting
documentation centres, researching and writing their own
texts.
65
information in dictionaries and encyclopaedias - on paper
or digital - to acquire a kind of autonomous behaviour.
However, it is questionable whether the language law
simply repeats an article from a previous law. Is it
simply a reminder of the rules in use? Or is it simply a
legal bulwark against a system that is failing in its
fundamental tasks? If a language law exists, its primary
purpose, like all democratic laws, is to assert an
obligation - and in this case a pre-eminence - and its
secondary purpose is to provide protection for the
weakest. When the State lays down the law in linguistic
matters, it undertakes to provide citizens - and in
particular the most culturally deprived citizens - with the
means to develop, to exercise power over things, to

integrate harmoniously into the social body and to
recognise themselves in a shared identity. "In language,
it is the law that liberates and freedom that oppresses",
Klinkenberg rightly writes. Since the 1989 Education
Act, have schools not provided appropriate solutions for
learning French and foreign languages?
We will look at the measures in force since 1994 to see
how the education and rehabilitation systems have
responded to these problems. The parliamentary report
on the application of the language law of 4 August 1994
provides us with an overview of the institutional
measures put in place since the law was published. The
report looks in turn at issues relating to the teaching of
French in schools and rehabilitation centres, regional
languages and the languages of immigrants. This will be
followed by the issue of modern foreign languages and
finally French as a foreign language.
66
1. FRENCH AS A MOTHER TONGUE
Since 1989, the Ministry of Education has been working
to improve the mastery of the French language at all
levels of schooling. A new organisation of teaching, new
curricula, new tools and the development of facilities for
welcoming foreign pupils have all been put in place.
In 1997, the Ministry of Education launched a specific
initiative to place competence in the French language
within the more general framework of "mastery of
languages", which includes mastery of the written word
and, above all, greater mastery of the spoken word and
the reading of images. A 'mastery of language' network
has been set up at both academic and departmental level.

This network is responsible for identifying success
stories, publicising and promoting them, and
participating in training and information initiatives.
That's all well and good. But we are tempted to ask why
so late?
Of course, it's impossible that many teachers haven't
tackled these issues for a long time, and that their
experiences, their successes and failures, haven't been
analysed for a long time, in order to shape future
developments.
But it's not impossible either that some successful
experiments have not made it beyond the school gate,
because the French education system is so used to the idea
of a "one-size-fits-all" approach.
"In addition, a process of reflection undertaken so
recently will only bear fruit in a few years' time, given
the cumbersome nature of the What's more, a process of
reflection undertaken so recently will only bear fruit in a
few years' time, given the cumbersome nature of the
dis- positives within the education system.
Since the 1970s, the focus has been on mastering the
French language, particularly the spoken word.
67
"Let them express themselves" was the advice given at
the time. Yes, but to say what? As for reading the
image, it's the
68
television has been a key topic over the last twenty
years, as almost all homes have been equipped with
television sets. Television itself has taken it upon itself to
work on the reading of its own images in certain general-
interest channels, thus constituting a valuable
documentary resource for teachers. The fact that schools
are only concerned with this in 1997 seems almost like a
good-natured archaism or a veneer of modernity.
Such negligence or blindness cannot be the fault of the
enlightened politicians who manage the education
system, so we should perhaps ask ourselves about some
of the audiences for whom such objectives are
formulated.
1.1. Language skills at primary level.

The first level (nursery school and primary school) is
where fundamental learning and this "language"
pedagogy are established, but establishments have to
deal with new problems in terms of the populations they
cater for. Nursery schools are no longer as well adapted
to their audiences as they once were. It now caters
simultaneously for very young children and children
who, for cultural or family reasons, are at an age close to
compulsory schooling. The levels of socialisation are
therefore very different, and a review has been
undertaken to improve the conditions of reception and
integration of these young pupils. The new measures,
put in place by a circular for the start of the 1998 school
year, involve increased work on oral language, access to
the written word, the structuring of a few elements of
image comprehension, as well as raising awareness of
foreign languages as an object of curiosity. Is this the
first recognition of the benefits of early foreign language
learning? At primary school, where new curricula have
been in place since the start of the school year
69
1995, these different objectives are being pursued.
Teacher training has not been forgotten, and teaching
tools are available, including via the Internet. In
addition, a plan to develop libraries and document
collections (BCD) has been launched, in particular to
enrich these collections. Finally, since reading is an issue
from a very early age, the national reading observatory
set up in 1995 is continuing its surveys and work not
only on children with learning difficulties, but also by
looking more closely at the role of parents.
All in all, a series of measures already provided for in
the 1989 Education Act. A linear policy, necessarily
anticipating future events, particularly in the field of
demographics, for the diversity of the public, and in the

field of regional planning, for the mobility of the
population (significant increase in enrolments in certain
departments in the south of France) could have
anticipated the problems posed today. Finally, little
attention is paid to the role played by parents in their
children's mastery of the language. Shouldn't the
requirement for schools, quite rightly, to produce pupils
who are masters of their own language, be accompanied
by a complementary suggestion that parents fulfil this
role in the private sphere? A child who is not spoken to
will have language difficulties (Bentolila), and a child
who is not read to will not enjoy reading. The school, in
the many tasks assigned to it, cannot, on its own, fill all
the gaps. That's why work on language skills continues
at collège.
1.2. The mastery of languages at secondary level

Considered today by many observers and users as the
place of all dangers, the collège
70
remains, especially in the opinion of teachers, the place
where mastery of languages must be particularly prepared.
Anyone who hasn't been to a secondary school outing at
the end of the day can't appreciate the extent to which
the linguistic gap between young people and adults -
particularly those in the school system - can sometimes be
considerable. But what language do they speak, one is
tempted to ask? Although sometimes incomprehensible,
what is said at the end of the school day often
demonstrates a great deal of creativity, which is too often
confined to clan codes.
Mastery of the language is a priority at primary level
and remains so at secondary level, with more flexible
curricula offered to pupils as well as an introduction to

Latin and Greek in the fifth year, which places the
French language in a historical perspective that is
extremely important for pupils. As a result, 26.6% of
pupils in cinquième chose to study Latin in qua- trième
(1997).
The new measures are accompanied by new resources
for teaching and new programmes. As far as teaching
resources are concerned, the timetable for collèges has
been increased in two ways. On the one hand, the
timetable for French at 6"e has been increased to six
hours a week, and on the other hand, schools have been
given a number of hours enabling them to organise
support measures in small groups or consolidation for
the weakest pupils. These additional resources are all
the more important where schools have a disadvantaged
population.
The new French syllabuses came into force in 1997 for
the sixth form and now cover all collège classes. They
have the same objective: mastery of written and spoken
discourse. A work
71
Particular attention is given to listening to spoken
messages and paying attention to what others have to
say.
In the area of reading, the programmes call for a
significant diversification in the types of texts. By the
end of collège, all pupils should have read thirty-six
literary works, "in one form or another". Teachers of all
subjects are being asked to work together to ensure that
pupils' language skills are taken into account. As in the
case of primary education, teachers are offered a range of
tools (paper, CD-ROMs, Internet) to help them in their
teaching approach. For example, the Centre National de
Documen- tation Pédagogique (CNDP) has produced a
guide entitled "La maîtrise de la langue au collège"

(mastering the language in lower secondary school),
aimed at teachers of all subjects.
1.3. French at lycée.

In the lycées d'enseignement général et technologique,
the new French syllabus for Year 10 was introduced at
the start of the 2000-2001 academic year.
The programme strives to maintain coherence with the
French lessons in collège, and in this respect the
objective of mastering discourse is pursued; a second
strand consists of offering pupils diversified access to
French, French-speaking and world literature, and the
third strand focuses, in addition to literary history, on
oral expression and mastery of the language, diversified
forms of reading and writing and the production of
inventive texts.
72
1.4. Language skills in agricultural education
As far as vocational education is concerned, only
agricultural education is benefiting from new French
syllabuses, as the subsequent reform of vocational
education has not yet been completed.
Under the auspices of the Directorate-General for
Agriculture and Fisheries, technical agricultural
education is also concerned with students' command of
the language. The development of agricultural
professions requires a good knowledge of French. The
emphasis is therefore on the correctness of the language
and the ability to express oneself in both academic and
professional contexts. The number of hours devoted to
French is the same as for biology, the most important

subject in these courses.
1.5. An evafiia/ion to be set up

Naturally, it is still too early to attempt to assess the
effects of these new measures. And only the traditional
assessment at the start of the second year at the start of
the 2000-2001 school year will enable us to draw some
conclusions about what has been achieved at collège.
1.6. Learning f*** * P*- foreign pupils. Reception

classes
In terms of language learning, the reception class for
foreign pupils is probably the one where the need for
comprehension and expression is most genuine. These
classes take in pupils whose first language is not French,
and teach French as a foreign language with the aim of
integrating them as quickly as possible into the sections
corresponding to their school level.
73
The originality of the system offered by the reception
classes lies in the fact that the urgency of
communication is fully felt by the pupils. Understanding
and making themselves understood as quickly as
possible is a real challenge, especially as they are
brought together with their French-speaking classmates
from the start of the school year for sports and art
activities. The desire to fit in, or rather to be accepted, is
a huge motivation for these pupils. What's more,
immersion in a normal class allows the pupils to
measure the distance separating them from their target
objective. It's a form of assessment that will be useful
for the student's future school career, if they realise it.
In the 1960s, when there were no special arrangements,

it took about six months for a foreign child of eight,
who was sufficiently extroverted, to speak like children
of his own age.
Today, pupils who can stay in this class for up to a school
year leave after three or four months, in the case of those
who were already attending school in their own country.
Characterised by the great diversity of the pupils -
different ages, different educational backgrounds,
different cultures, different religions, different family and
social situations - some newcomers come from political
refugee families and have psychological scars that need to
be monitored - the reception class uses a differentiated
teaching approach from the outset, resolutely inspired by
French as a foreign language. The teachers do not react
according to a virtual reality, the pedagogical and psycho-
pedagogical objective is immediately apparent, and
assessment is carried out in real time ("I have
understood, I act or I respond". "I haven't understood
and... anything can happen..."). Solidarity and mutual
aid are almost natural and the social usefulness of such
teaching is immediately perceived by pupils and parents.
74
The teachers who work in these classes all have a
background in French as a foreign language. Their task
is not an easy one, and they have to be constantly
listening to the pupils and constantly asking their
colleagues to agree to take on pupils relatively quickly if
they think they will be able to follow the lessons in the
class. The reception class only really works well when
the teaching team is solid and cooperative. Finally, the
friendliness and high level of motivation of the children
and teachers make the reception class a world apart, a
little protected, where it's good to be.
Difficulties do exist, however, with pupils who arrive, as a
result of family reunification, at an age close to the end
of compulsory schooling, with little or no schooling in

their own country. These teenagers, who feel badly
about themselves and are really behind at school, cannot
stay in the reception class after the age of sixteen. In
such cases, they are taken into work-linked vocational
integration programmes (CIPPA), some of which have a
specific French as a foreign language component.
CIPPAs exist in all the académies, but it is those in the
Ite de France that are most in demand (more than 800
applications were made in 1997 to the Académie de
Paris).
However, a good number of obstacles remain when it
comes to young foreigners with linguistic difficulties.
Information for families is patchy and difficult to find,
with information and guidance centres contenting
themselves with compiling lists of applicants without
classifying them according to their pupils' linguistic and
academic skills. Priority should be given to new arrivals
over the age of 16 and to those from reception classes
with a level of French that is insufficient but that allows
them to envi- ronmentally integrate into the labour
market.
75
to ensure integration. Lastly, little is known about the
curricular content implemented, or about the training of the
staff responsible for these pupils, as the CIPPA-FLE
were set up in a hurry and employed staff from other
CIPPAs, who therefore had no FLE training. Lastly,
administrative support for young foreigners remains
uncertain, and there are numerous problems with
residence permits and papers for those who, having left
the reception classes, do not have any to enter the
sandwich courses.
1.7. Mastering the passion /ranfaise in IeS Insertion

and integration policies

In addition to the Ministry of Education, which has this
as one of its key missions, other ministries are also
concerned with the mastery of the French language. The
Ministry of Employment and Solidarity, the Ministry of
Justice and the Ministry of Defence are all involved in
public action to prevent illiteracy. These initiatives are
not new; they date back to the early 1980s.
Various programmes are implemented by different
ministries: an operation Défense-Lecture (Defence-
Reading) for young conscripts, an action by the Ministry
of Justice aimed at young people under judicial
protection and prisoners. For example, the "Insertion,
Reinsertion and the Fight against Illiteracy" (IRILL)
programme is aimed at prisoners, refugees and people
affected by illiteracy, with a total 1998 budget of
108,780 million francs. Finally, the fight against illiteracy
is the subject of two articles in the Loi d'orientation
relative à la lutte contre les exclusions of
1Report to Parliament on the application of the law of 04 August
1994 on the use of the French language.

9 July 1998. This fight has become a priority
national.
However, the legislative framework is far too recent to
allow an assessment of the action taken. A real
assessment is needed of the many associations dedicated
to this fight. The administrative red tape involved in
allocating subsidies causes delays, hampers long-term
action and staff receive little recognition for their
commitment. In the field of French as a foreign
language, the needs are great, but working on these tasks
is not much appreciated by the teachers, who are kept in a
very precarious situation, even though it is more often
than not the teaching methods of French as a foreign
language that prove to be the most effective in these

classes. On the whole, the work done in these areas is
little known and little appreciated, as it is not regarded
as prestigious.
Finally, can we consider that all the measures aimed at
language proficiency are part of an explicit language
policy? This does not seem to be the case. The
education system's responses, however positive they
may be, are usually in response to situations of urgency
or tension - among students, teachers or society as a
whole. An explicit language policy takes a temporal
perspective in which the 'long' term dominates and
urgency can only be exceptional, as language policy is
sufficiently flexible to adapt to changes. Moreover,
"language law" does not mean
"language policy". At most, the law indicates "plan-
cher" situations in terms of teaching. To ignore this
would be to implicitly abdicate the responsibilities of
the education system.
In conclusion, modesty is called for, because while there
is an obvious link between socio-economic problems
and language proficiency, the acquisition of a polished
language does not always protect against precarious
situations and unemployment.
2. REGIONAL LANGUAGES
While the issue of defending and disseminating the
French language unleashes contradictory passions in
France, the same is true of regional languages. Present in
France since the Middle Ages, these languages left the
public sphere after the Ordinances of Villers-Côtterets in
1539, which imposed the pre-eminence of French in

public and notarial documents, and moved into the
private sphere.
In 1794, during the French Revolution, Abbé Grégoire
launched the first survey of the linguistic history of
France, with the aim of "wiping out the patois and
making the French language universal". In the eyes of
the revolutionaries of the Convention, this approach was
justified as a means of putting an end to local languages
that led to incomprehension and manipulation -
particularly by the Church - of the illiterate rural
masses, but it was not put into practice.
To "annihilate" a language requires genocidal action
and, fortunately, the revolutionaries had neither the time
nor the means to do this, being too busy assembling the
men who would make up the revolutionary armies
destined to defend their homeland, whatever their
language.
It was in a much more peaceful but no less effective way
that the 19th century and Jules Ferry established the use
of the French language in a lasting and definitive way
through the laws relating to public, secular and
compulsory schools. This was the first major
77
The second movement was just one of the consequences
of the First World War: the armada of men from every
small village in France, with their own languages and
customs, gave French a vehicularity that had hitherto
been unheard of in rural areas. Regional languages were
definitively confined to their geographically defined
territories, in the private sphere, and definitively
devalued in social representations in favour of French.
It was not until the early 1950s that the political
authorities began to look at the situation in a slightly
different light, because languages had not, of course,
been "wiped out", as the revolutionaries had hoped.
Today, on the contrary, we can say that what
characterises regional languages is precisely that they

are first and foremost languages "in the full sense of the
term", as Hagège points out,'2 "sometimes even richer
and more complex than so-called languages. A language
being no more than a patois or dialect that has had the
good fortune to be promoted by a political power", he
adds. What's more, these languages are characterised by
their permanence: even their most limited use has never
changed over time, giving them a certain historical
depth. What's more, these days we tend to think that
regional languages and French are mutually supportive
because of their common origins, their adaptability and
their permeability: like any language, they are subject to
external influences.
As a result, discourse on regional languages has evolved
considerably over the last twenty years. We have gone
from silent indifference to a claim to a prestigious
heritage that must first be safeguarded and then
promoted.
'2 HAGEGE Claude, Le français et les siècles, Fayard, 1992.
78
France, which, thanks to the opening up of Europe, has
come to embrace the discourse of linguistic pluralism
and cultural diversity, could no longer, at the risk of
acrobatic conceptual wrangling, fail to include its
linguistic heritage as an integral part of this claimed
cultural diversity.
The official discourse has been backed up by a genuine
renewal of public interest in regional languages. Since
the 1970s, we have seen a shift from a public that
identified with regionalist political struggles to one that
is interested in culture. Nowadays, not only some of the
descendants of the people who lived in these regions are
learning regional languages, but sometimes a generation
later: it is often the grandchildren who are reacquainted

with the language of their grandparents - and this step
constitutes a new cement between the generations - but
also adopted inhabitants of these regions, who, in the
interests of integration, choose to deepen through the
study of the regional language an approach that was
initially cultural and sentimental.
This is why, today, these languages enjoy a positive
image in people's minds; they have emerged from the
confines of demands to open up to a cultural dimension
accessible to all, in a spirit where being from a region
with all its cultural and linguistic attributes is not in
contradiction with being French, European and a citizen
of the world. Didn't a CSA Opinion DNA survey in 1999
show that 70% of French people as a whole considered
that ratification of the European Charter for Regional and
Minority Languages promoted by the Council of Europe
did not represent a threat to the unity of the Republic?
In fact, while this is due to new developments in
learning conditions, the wider audience in-
79
towards regional languages is due above all to the
tremendous efforts of the artistic and cultural community,
whose events attract thousands of participants, whether
or not they use regional languages. (Les Celti- ques de
Lorient attracted 500,000 spectators in the summer of
2000). This new attitude demonstrates, if proof were
needed, that integration also requires the recognition of
particularities. In fact, being born in Normandy, the
grandson of Polish parents, having grown up on the
banks of the Etang de Berre, singing in Provençal and
French is presented by singer Samuel Carpienia, from
the Marseille group "Du- pain", as the very example of
successful integration. Finally, making an inventory of
languages has become a necessity. The French were

astonished to discover that their country's linguistic
heritage numbered seventy-five languages3 , including
not only the regional languages of mainland France, but
also the island languages of the French territories of
Polynesia and Mayotte, and the French-based Creoles of
the overseas departments o f Martinique, Guadeloupe,
French Guiana and Réunion, English-Portuguese-based
Creoles from French Guiana, Amerindian languages,
Kanak languages from New Caledonia, not forgetting
the languages of certain diasporas with a status
recognised as 'historical', which includes the languages
of immigrants. The colonial history of the French
Republic has led some French populations in the
Maghreb to preserve their language, whether Berber or
dialectal Arabic. It's enough to make the average
observer's head spin, confined to the assurance of a
triumphant monolingualism! As a result, the slogan
"Francophone, plurilingual" is the one that best suits
the inhabitants of the
"Douce" region.
80
"Report by Bernard CERQUiGLINI, Les langues de la France, August
1999.
81
France"4 . An analysis of the stages in the teaching of
regional languages and cultures will enable us to see
how far we have come since the 1950s and, above all, to
consider how far we still have to go. This should enable
us to determine whether a genuine language policy has
been put in place.
2.1. The legislative and administrative apparatus

In 1951, the Deixonne law (51-46) authorised "the
teaching of local languages and dialects". (This was the
name given at the time). This teaching was limited to
four areas: Breton, Basque, Catalan and Occitan.
Teachers were authorised to use their local languages

whenever this was useful for their teaching. This law
removes two taboos. Firstly, the teaching of these
languages in their own right and, secondly, teaching in
these languages. What's more, it will be the only piece of
legislation discussed and voted on in parliament. Despite
a multitude of bills being tabled over the years, not a
single one has come up for discussion. Hence the feeling
of abandonment experienced by the defenders of
regional languages.
It is interesting to note that the law reveals, as a
counterpoint, that many schoolchildren were more a t
ease in their regional language than in French. It also
marked the first step from tolerance to recognition.
1974: a decree extended the provisions of the Deixonne
law to Corsican and introduced an optional regional
language test at the Baccalauréat.
1976: the Haby law on education extended the
possibilities offered by the Deixonne law, without
changing its structure.
1981: a decree includes Tahitian.
'4 Song by Charles Trenet, covered by the Beur group "Carte de séjour"
82
in the late 80s.
83
1982-1983: the Savary circulars (82-261) and (83-547)
improved the system and proposed experimenting with
bilingualism. The name of these lessons became richer.
The first circular was entitled "The teaching of regional
cultures and languages in the national education
system", while the second was entitled "Text on the
teaching of regional cultures and languages". While
laying the foundations for educational action at all
levels, in a spirit of coherence and effectiveness, these
texts, which show a more obvious interest on the part of
the central administration of national education, base the
action of the State in three directions: the organisation of
teaching, the status of this teaching within national
education, and the recognition of the voluntary choice of

families and pupils in the direction of these languages.
However, these provisions did not cover teacher training.
1989: the Jospin law "D'orientation sur 1'éducation" (89-
486) of 10 July 1989 confirmed the concern for regional
languages. It states that "the training provided by the
national education system may include the teaching of
regional languages and cultures" (as it stands today). It
applies to all levels of education and proposes, for the
first time, the gradual creation of CAPES qualifications
in Basque, Breton, Corsican and Occitan-Langues d'Oc,
thereby giving teachers a real status and legitimacy for
the languages concerned, which in a way become part of
the national heritage.
"the big leagues".
1992a decree includes certain languages on the
list
Melanesian.
1995: the Bayrou circular (95-086) on the teaching of
regional languages reaffirms "the State's commitment to
these languages"; it specifies the "concern to ensure the
preservation of an essential element of French
patriotism".
84
It also "sets out official guidelines and measures to
improve the transmission of regional languages and
cultures".
We continue to read, in counterpoint, that despite the
official texts, things don't seem to go without saying and
that these lessons need the rampart of new texts to take
shape.
The circular therefore invites rectors to implement multi-
year plans in consultation with local authorities. From
the point of view of administrative organisation, the
rector- hue appoints a project manager
to regional languages, which, among other
things, coordinates dialogue between the various partners:
the academic committee for regional languages and

cultures, the academic information and guidance service
(SAIO), the regional educational documentation centre
(CRDP) responsible for developing and publishing
educational documents and tools, and local authorities.
Article 23 of the Decentralisation Act no. 83-663 of 22
July 1983 on the division of powers between the
communes, départements, regions and the State
mentions the role of these authorities in organising
complementary cultural activities. This provision
therefore implies that the local authorities should be
genuinely involved, as part of a partnership, in
implementing policies to promote regional languages.
Lastly, the deconcentrated departments of the
Ministries of Culture and Francophonie are concerned.
Once again, the administrative machinery put in place by
This circular and the reminder to all potential partners
shows that a lot of convincing is needed and that a lot
remains to be done.
'5 Today the central administration of the Ministry of Education has

appointed an Inspector General responsible for regional languages.
85
All in all, after twenty-five years of silence, the system
took shape in around fifteen years. The teaching of
regional languages and cultures was established in three
different networks: the public network (schools,
collèges, lycées, universities), the network of private
educational establishments under a contract of
association, and the network of private schools, collèges
and lycées organised in the form of cultural
associations.
Does this organisation reflect a well thought-out and
organised language policy? Nothing is less certain. We
can see that some decisions were taken under pressure
from political events (Tahiti, New Caledonia, Corsica, for
example); we can also see that Creole, despite a high

level of use in the West Indies, Réunion and French
Guiana, is totally absent from these provisions.
2.2. Courses offered within the public education

system
These courses range from simple awareness-raising to
bilingual teaching.
2.2.1. First degree

In addition to raising awareness of the language through
various classroom activities, students are given one to
three hours a week, depending on the situation.
However, bilingual teaching is the preferred option.
Over the last twenty years or so, equal bilingual classes
have been set up. In these classes, not only is the
language taught, but half of the school activities are
taught in the language. This new approach, which has
been widely acclaimed by families, has opened up
interesting prospects for the early learning of modern
languages throughout the education system. Evaluations
86
have shown that
87
The results obtained by the pupils were excellent, as this
form of teaching contributes to the intellectual
development of the pupils and to their self-fulfilment. As
a result, bilingual teaching of regional languages has
gone from being a confidential and little-appreciated
activity to being recognised as a pedagogical method,
and has played a pioneering role in language teaching
methods.
2.2.2. At college
Regional languages can be chosen as an optional extra
for one hour a week from 6ème to 3ème, but they tend to
play the role of a foreign language, with a timetable of 3

hours a week.
Regional languages" sections have been created, with
three hours of teaching per week starting in Year 6 and
including one or more subjects in regional languages.
2.2.3. At the Lycée

Optional teaching remains possible. It lasts between one
and three hours a week. Regional languages can also be
chosen as modern languages 2 or 3, or as special
subjects. The Centre national d'études par
correspondance (CNED) also organises courses f o r
secondary school students.
2.2.4. Higher Education

Most regional languages and cultures are represented at
the university. Students are offered a full range of
courses. All three cycles of higher education are
involved. According to the list of diplomas awarded in
1995, the only titles that include the name of a regional
language are
88
regional languages, 78 DEUGs, 78 bachelor's degrees
and 17 master's degrees. There are also diplomas in
Melanesian and Polynesian languages (4 and 5 licences
in 1995)6 . In addition, some IUFMs offer preparation for
the CAPES examinations in the areas where these
languages are spoken.
2.3. The languages concerned
2.3.1. The languages concerned within Hexa- gone and

offered within the education system are the following:
- Alsatian-Moselle. This formulation clearly

indicates the area in which the language is spoken, but
does not take into account the linguistic varieties.
Alemannic tends to be found in the Académie of
Strasbourg, while French covers the Académie of
Nancy-Metz. The written form of all the varieties is
German, which has been given the name Regional
German, giving it a dual status. This gives the language
dual status as a regional language and as a modern
foreign language, with the result that the overall
number of students in the national statistics for this
language, which is also being taught less and less, is
"inflated".
- Basque. The Basque-speaking area
corresponds to the south-western third of the Atlantic
Pyrenees department and is under the responsibility of
the Académie de Bor- deaux. It is a direct extension of
the Basque-speaking area of the Iberian Peninsula,
where Basque is an official language alongside Castilian.
Basque is also developing within the urban area of
Bayonne. An indisputable policy of economic exchange
"Bernard Poignant report, Regional cultures and languages,

1998.
This cross-border cultural initiative, which is strongly
supported by local authorities, has given a particular boost
to the teaching of the Basque language.
- Breton. Spoken and taught mainly in the western
part of Brittany, this language of very ancient origin is
also present in small Breton islands in the Pays Gallo.
Under the authority of the Académie de Ren- nes, this
teaching receives effective support from the
administrative authorities, who are very committed to the
teaching of modern languages. The language centre at
the University of Rennes is one of the leading in France.
Breton language teaching is also present in the Loire-
Atlantique region and in Paris.
- Catalan. Catalan covers almost the whole of the

Pyrénées Orientales department. Its teaching is the
responsibility of the Montpellier Academy. As with
Basque, at the other end of the Pyrenees, Catalan has
been boosted by neighbouring Catalonia, one of Spain's
autonomous provinces, which has made Catalan official
and whose economic and cultural dynamism is
attracting more and more French Catalan speakers.
- Corsican. For a long time, Corsican was
considered a dialect of Italian. Today, Corsican is the
only language that enjoys a special status, linked to the
administrative status of the island. This is why the
adjective "regional" is not used for the Corsican
language. It does not appear in the official texts
governing recruitment competitions. The current name
is "Corsican language". This special status comes with
real benefits in terms of supply and resourcesl7 .
'7 In reality, the term "regional languages", while conceivable in the

1950s when the Deixonne law was passed, is still discriminatory
today, in my view. Either these languages, which have the status of
languages in their own right from the point of view of linguists, are
given their own name, or they are given the qualifier 'regional', which
87
gives them a sub-statutory position.
88
- Occitan. The nomenclature established by the
Deixonne law retained this name. Today, it is called
langue d'oc because the region covered by Occitan-
langue d'oc is the largest of all the regions with a regional
language. It covers an area that stretches from east to
west from the Academies of Nice, Grenoble, Aix-
Marseille, Clermont-Ferrand, Montpellier, Toulouse,
Limoges, Bordeaux and Poitiers. The language has
official status in the Val d'Aran in Spain. In addition to
its geographical spread, the language enjoys great
prestige and a significant and recognised literary output.
The ancient nature of the language gives it an
indisputable historical dimension, since it was spoken
and written long before French. Extremely lively, it is

now spoken by a large number of artists and writers.
There are a number of languages that do not enjoy the
status of 'regional languages' in France, even though
they are taught. These include West Flemish, which is
spoken on the Flemish fringe of northern France, the Oïl
languages (Picard in the north, Gallo in the west and
Poitevin), which are based on French, and Franco-
Provençal, which is a pivotal variety between French
and Occitan and is spoken in the Lyon and Grenoble
education authorities.
2.3.2. Languages not on the list but spoken in

France
These are the languages of French nationals of foreign
origin who, for historical reasons, have settled in France
for several generations. Berber, dialectal Arabic and the
Creoles of the
slightly folkloric, involving more of a marginal ethnicity.
89
Antilles, given the size of the West Indian diaspora in
mainland France, or Western Armenian, do not benefit
from any special measures.
2.4. The workforce

The teaching of regional languages and cultures is on
the increase. However, with a total of 335,000 students
at all levels for twelve million pupils, learners of regional
languages represent only 3% of the national education
system. All in all, this is quite a small number, and
nothing to frighten off those who see the teaching of
regional languages as a threat to the French language. In
terms of teaching methods, 75% of learners opt for

bilingual teaching.
It should be noted that the choice of this teaching is part
of a genuine educational project on the part of families
and pupils, which is particularly positive, on the one
hand, because many families are criticised for not
having any, and on the other, because these choices of
first regional language displace that of English, even
though we know that 9 out of 10 children choose it as
their first language. However, the figures cover very
different realities. Basque is becoming more
widespread, as is the Spanish model. Catalan is on the
increase, stimulated by its Catalan neighbour. Occitan is
growing strongly in the academies that promote it. And
this is where the weight of central government comes
into play. The disparities observed therefore reflect
unequal social demand in the different regions
concerned, depending on the legal status of the language
in question, its symbolic status, its spread outside
France, its cultural prestige and the interest and support
it receives from local authorities.
90
2.S. The shapes
As mentioned above, bilingual teaching is truly the
most original and most popular form of regional
language learning. There are two reasons for this. The
first concerns the presumed benefits of early linguistic
immersion, and the second the importance of learning a
language not just for its own sake, but as a way of
approaching other forms of learning through that
language.
This position, which has been defended for many years
by advocates of early language learning (Porcher and
Groux)1 ', has only recently been accepted by the
national education system in relation to living foreign
languages.
Modern languages have only recently become
compulsory at primary school, and bilingual
establishments are rare (international schools) or private
(active bilingual schools offering English).
Experiments with regional languages have shown just
how beneficial bilingual teaching can be for pupils, how
much exposure to regional cultures can broaden their
cultural horizons, and how much such learning can help
to restore a collective memory that has become illusory
as a result of being forgotten.
However, much remains to be done. The diversity of
situations observed shows us that, despite the measures
intended to support this learning, there is no real
language policy that would adopt a global but
diversified and adapted approach. Language provision
seems to be far too closely linked to urgent political
needs. It too often has the effect of Justine. The
Louis PORCHER and Dominique GROUX, L'apprentissage

précoce des langues, Que sais-je? PUF, 1998.
91
Most of the progress that has been made is the result of
demands from civil society, which is much more
supportive of these languages than the State appears to
be. The introduction of such teaching is the result not
only of national pressure, but also of international
pressure.
With regard to the latter, the President of the Republic's
refusal to amend the articles of the Constitution relating
to the fact that French is the language of the Republic
(1992), an amendment necessary to allow ratification of
the European Charter for Regional and Minority
Languages, re-launched and revitalised the public
debate on regional languages. A large majority of
French people were in favour of ratification. In fact,

France, a champion of cultural exceptionalism and
multilingualism that militates against the influence of
English, finds itself in a delicate position in relation to
its European partners.
3. LANGUAGES OF IMMIGRATION
A better title would be "The languages of immi-
grations", because France has a long tradition of
migration. If we look back to the twentieth century, we
can see that many foreigners came to settle in France,
either as refugees driven out by political events in their
own country, or as economic immigrants seeking better
living conditions or recruited by France to promote the
development of French industry and its economy in
general.
Armenians, White Russians, Poles, Germans and Jews
from Central Europe fleeing the rise of Nazism, Spanish
Republicans, Italians escaping Fascism and many others
took refuge in France and, over time, became French
citizens by birth or marriage. Many of their children
kept their father's language.
92
They are now perfectly integrated.
At the end of the 1950s, economic migration began:
from southern Europe, Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia,
and later from Turkey and trans-Saharan Africa, many
immigrant workers helped to create the linguistic mosaic
that is France. In 1974, under the law on family
reunification, which allowed spouses and their children
to join workers living in the country, an initiative
designed to enable the children of migrants to maintain
contact with their language and culture of origin was set
up (ELCO).
This generous initiative, worthy for once of all the
rhetoric on the theme of interculturality, was not without
a certain cynicism. It was hoped that it would encourage

families to return home once the economic crisis and
long-term unemployment had set in. This initiative was
not intended to reflect the thinking developed in other
countries, notably the United States, on the rights of
minorities. The idea of positive discrimination remains
out of the question in France, since the dominant
discourse is that of the State's integrating function.
The teaching of the languages and cultures of origin
(ELCO) was founded on the basis of bilateral agreements
signed in 1977 between France and a number of
countries with large migrant populations: Algeria,
Spain, Italy, Morocco, Portugal, Tunisia and the former
Yugoslavia. A Brussels directive in 1977 made this
practice compulsory. Teaching is the responsibility of the
countries concerned, which recruit and pay the teachers
and finance the textbooks. Classes are given on an
optional basis, for three hours a week, in collèges,
vocational lycées and, above all, primary schools.
93
French schools are responsible for day-to-day
operations. They are chosen on a voluntary basis and
there is no legal requirement for a school headmaster to
accept an ELCO. This sometimes poses serious
problems for the academic departments responsible.
These courses are assessed jointly by French
inspectorates and representatives of foreign education
systems. In reality, what is mainly evaluated is how well
the ELCOs are run, not the content taught. Enrolments
have fallen steadily over the last ten years, from almost
140,000 pupils to around 78,000 in 1996/1997 (with the
exception of Moroccan pupils, who have increased
threefold). In 1997/1998 there was a slight increase
(0.8%).
Despite a slight increase in numbers in 1998, the ELCO
situation is not entirely clear. Firstly, because the list of
countries concerned no longer really reflects the
migratory flows present in France at the end of the
century. Not on the list, for example, are the Asian
countries of Vietnam, Cambodia, Sri Lanka and above
all China, and the various countries of Eastern and
Southern Europe (Albania, Romania). The list of partner
countries should therefore be reviewed in its entirety,
especially as three of the current participants are
members of the European Union and their respective
languages and cultures are widely spoken within the
education system. Secondly, because the underlying
idea of preparing families for their return home has
fallen flat. Very few of them have returned home and
their children, who have integrated into French society,
refuse to hear of any return. What's more, these courses
are not widely accepted by those involved in the
education system; unaccustomed to the diplomatic
management that is essential for this type of teaching,
they suffer from sometimes haphazard teaching
practices and the isolation of teachers who are not at all
94
integrated.
95
in the teams. In addition, some diplomatic services
would like their teachers to take part in training courses
reserved for French teachers in order to create synergy
between the teams, whereas other embassies do not
wish to do so because they prefer to exercise a power of
control that is sometimes far removed from
considerations of language and teaching.
There is also the problem of evaluating these courses.
To date, no statistics are available. Children who take
this type of teaching, which is not valued by the official
system, are reluctant to attend classes regularly. In
return, the system pays no attention to these young
bilingual speakers, whose performance at school has
never been assessed on the basis of their bilingualism.

Finally, the agreements make no provision for French
children to attend these classes. This is a pity, because if
Ahmed and Martin are classmates in the compulsory
classes, their friendship would be strengthened when
Martin attended the ELCO classes with his friend
Ahmed. In short, the idea is not new. A handful of
schools'9 have experimented with the formula by
including these classes in the school timetable and
opening them up to everyone, with great success. But
the cases are rare and beyond agreement.
As for the children of new migrant flows, they are
abandoned to the simple private use of their language.
Their culture is not taken into account at school, which
reinforces the feeling of marginality and encourages
failure.
A comprehensive and appropriate language policy
should take account of all these populations so that, with a
real concern for interculturality, their integration at
school and their future integration into French society
are facilitated.
"Primary school on the rue de Tanger in Paris's l9th

96
arrondissement, a long time ago.
97
4. LEARNING MODERN LANGUAGES
The law on the use of the French language of 4 August
1994 reiterates the obligation of the education system to
promote
knowledge of two foreign languages for all
pupils in state schools. France, which has adopted this
policy for a very long time, also has a special feature: it
is the European Union country with the widest range of
modern languages studied in the education system. In
addition to the regional languages mentioned above,
several languages are offered at primary level: German,
English, Literal Arabic, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and
Russian. At secondary level, there are more than twenty
languages if we add to the first seven, for example,

Chinese, modern Hebrew, Japanese, Dutch and Polish.
Unlike many countries that offer only one foreign
language as part of their curriculum, France almost
suffers from an excess of choice, especially as these
languages are offered very unevenly across the country.
Of course, possibility is by no means reality, and the
panorama of what is actually on offer in schools is quite
different, differing little (if at all) from that in
neighbouring countries.
Since the promulgation of the 1989 Loi d'Orientation
pour l'Education, the subject of early modern language
teaching has been much talked about. Was it right to
offer pupils a 'sensitisation' to languages other than
French, and in that case to extend the offer as far as
possible without any concern for continuity? On the
contrary, should we be offering an introductory course
and, with that in mind, making cost-effective choices for
future studies at collège and lycée?
98
From the point of view of learning theory, was a young
child 'mature' enough to learn a modern language from
the first year of nursery school? Was there not a risk of
blocking the child's mastery of language and cognitive
development? In short, just about everything has been
written on this subject, sometimes without taking into
account common sense and, above all, certain
experiments carried out both in France and abroad.
Several avenues could be explored: immersion courses
offered in international schools or bilingual public
schools, those implemented in the network of French
schools abroad, and those existing in the teaching of
regional languages which have developed these
practices in state primary schools. Abroad, Canada is the

country most often cited as an example. Catalonia, an
autonomous province of Spain, also offers interesting
immersion e x p e r i e n c e s .
The conclusion to be drawn f r o m all this is that
schoolchildren
French have gone through a multitude of sporadic and
poorly planned linguistic experiments. What's more, the
good results achieved by pupils in bilingual classes
should have won everyone over in the end.
4.1. The generalisation of language learning at

primary level
Generally speaking, introductory foreign language
teaching is now offered in primary schools from CE1 to
CE2. The lessons, which are based on audiovisual
material, last a quarter of an hour a day and are taught
either by the class teacher, a secondary school teacher or
an external speaker paid by the municipality that runs the
school. To help teachers
99
For teachers, the Centre national de documentation
pédagogique (CNDP) has designed and produced the
"vidéo sans frontière" collection in English, German,
Spanish and Italian, and more recently in Portuguese,
and some 100,000 copies have been distributed. The
choice of foreign language is left to the discretion of
teachers, depending on their ability or the opportunities
available at the time. As a result, the same pupil may
receive an introduction to one language one year,
another the following year or, sometimes, no
introduction at all, for lack of a teacher.
Be that as it may, the report by the French Education
Ministry's statistical services indicated that for the
1996/1997 school year2 ', three out of every four CEIs,

two out of every three CE2s and one out of every three
CM1s, i.e. around 1,300,000 pupils and around 75,000
teachers, were introduced to the subject. Among the
languages chosen, English represented 81% of the
classes concerned, German 12%, Spanish 5% and
Italian 1.2%. These figures and the teaching materials
chosen clearly demonstrate the multilingual ambitions of
those responsible for education. However, the high
percentage of classes taught in English reflects the long-
standing situation at secondary level.
The Ministry of Education decided to extend the
teaching of a modern foreign language to all CM2
pupils at the start of the 1999 school year, and then to all
CMI pupils at the start of the 2000 school year. This
generalisation has been the subject of regulatory texts
which insist on the continuity and diversification of
language teaching. As a result, parents can now choose
the languages offered in sixth form at the collèges in
their area.
The teaching provided at primary level is as follows
as a real apprenticeship, and no longer a simple
100
20
The compulsory teaching of a modern language from CM 2 and
CM 1 has only been in place since 1998 (CM 2) and 1999 (CM 1).
101
initiation. It is hoped that there will be continuity with
teaching at collège level. All categories of staff likely to
provide this teaching are being called upon and new
resources are being made available.
And that's where the problem lies. Firstly, because not
all categories of staff agree to work in primary
education, even since the creation of the 'professeurs des
écoles' body, and teachers appointed to collèges are
generally reluctant to teach in primary school, in addition
to their normal duties; and secondly, because educational
continuity is severely undermined at the start of the
sixth form, where many teachers take no account
whatsoever of what pupils have learned. These skills,
which are communicative and highly motivating for the

pupils, are relegated to more traditional practices
focused on the study of grammar and texts. Even then,
secondary school teachers sometimes have to start from
scratch, forced by the fact that they have to teach
children who have learnt different languages in primary
school. As a result, the Ministry of Education's objective
of improving pupils' oral communication skills is far
from being achieved. What's more, the way in which
pupils are assessed needs to be completely overhauled,
with a grading system that favours the spoken word over
the written word in the early grades, with a rebalancing
thereafter.
Naturally, early language teaching is very positive. We
are tempted to say "at last! 11 The initiatives that have
been taken are to be welcomed. The massive
recruitment of native language assistants is likely to
strengthen this teaching. But to date there has been no
evaluation of the number, quality or role of these
language assistants. The fact remains that we can
legitimately question the length of time that a modern
foreign language should be compulsorily taught
throughout schooling.
102
as we shall see, new solutions could be adopted.
4.2. Modern foreign languages studied at secondary

level
At present, pupils are taught a foreign language from
sixth form onwards. They can choose from the languages
mentioned above. In the fourth year, pupils choose a
second modern language from among the languages
plus Turkish and regional languages.
In 1996/1997, English was still the dominant language
for 86.9% of pupils in the public sector and 92.3% in the
private sector. In the vocational sector, the
preponderance of English is even more marked.

German, whose numbers are declining slowly, despite
policies to promote the language organised jointly by the
German and French governments, remains at 11.9% in
the public sector and 6.9% in the private sector. One
pupil in two chooses Spanish as a second language. The
number of pupils taking LV 3 has fallen with the
introduction of the LV renforcé option, but Italian
remains the language most chosen by 39% of pupils.
4.3. Language policy for the teaching of modern

languages
The social choices made show that English is and will
remain the dominant foreign language. We must accept
this idea and try to imagine new learning paths or ones
that are differently targeted in terms of content.
Extending the length of the first year of study
2Source:
Ministry of National Education, Research and Technology,
Programming and Development Department.
103
As we said above, this should make it possible to start
learning the second language earlier. In addition, if we
are to defend multilingualism, which we support, it is
essential to review not only the way in which languages
are chosen at lycée, but also the range of languages on
offer.
4.3.1. Modern languages as tools for strategic career

paths
All too often, the choice of language depends on which
school you want your child to attend. So much so that
spectacular reversals can occur during the course of a
child's education. An analysis of the wish-list forms

submitted by families to different schools (generally
four are offered as a choice, depending on results) on
entry to the seconde class reveals choices that have
absolutely nothing to do with the pupil's desire or taste
for a particular language. In Paris, for example, the same
pupil may apply for the lycée Henri IV with, in order,
German, English and modern Greek, then the lycée
Fénelon with German, English and Spanish, then the
lycée Jules Ferry with German, English and Italian and
finally the lycée Rabelais with English, German and...
economics. These requests obviously reflect a clever
strategy of social avoidance: the game is to put your
child in a class where the others belong to a slightly
higher social class.
The linguistic objective, even if it is emphasised, is in
This is a reality that is far removed from the concerns of
families, who are well aware that the system does not
allow their children to acquire real skills and who
supplement the teaching provided by the school with
short courses, language stays, trips and pen-pal
exchanges.
104

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my"6 would have said Sartre about an almost equally

2. THE ENTRY AT THE PERIOD

In 1971, the Council of Europe set up a working group,

and French, new descriptions of languages according to

i s crushed under the weight of the education s y s t e m ' s

' Identifying the language needs of adults learning a foreign language,

2.1. Universitarisation of French as a foreign

promoted in a number of universities, sometimes taking

rejected; the creation of a university curriculum (full

Etudes de Linguistique Appliquée, n° 64, Didier Erudition, "Priorité

had been at the discretion of the Ministry of Foreign

people who sneered in 1985 at Louis PORCHER's

remarkable decentralisation, since universities

France first in the world) and professional exchanges,

audience, their concerns, their objectives, and the time

language is making headway almost everywhere.

Even though the French state has enacted few language

essentialists fight over respect for the norm against

worrying domestic economic situation that points to the

'0 "modimes" refers to languages that are "less widely used".

among the fundamental objectives of education".

means to develop, to exercise power over things, to

has been set up at both academic and departmental level.

1.1. Language skills at primary level.

demographics, for the diversity of the public, and in the

1.2. The mastery of languages at secondary level

curricula offered to pupils as well as an introduction to

guide entitled "La maîtrise de la langue au collège"

1.3. French at lycée.

French is the same as for biology, the most important

1.5. An evafiia/ion to be set up

1.6. Learning f*** * P*- foreign pupils. Reception

In the 1960s, when there were no special arrangements,

of compulsory schooling, with little or no schooling in

1.7. Mastering the passion /ranfaise in IeS Insertion

and integration policies

1Report to Parliament on the application of the law of 04 August

1994 on the use of the French language.

language that prove to be the most effective in these

1539, which imposed the pre-eminence of French in

characterises regional languages is precisely that they

'2 HAGEGE Claude, Le français et les siècles, Fayard, 1992.

later: it is often the grandchildren who are reacquainted

languages has become a necessity. The French were

2.1. The legislative and administrative apparatus

Teachers were authorised to use their local languages

education, and the recognition of the voluntary choice of

the academic committee for regional languages and

'5 Today the central administration of the Ministry of Education has

example); we can also see that Creole, despite a high

2.2. Courses offered within the public education

2.2.1. First degree

play the role of a foreign language, with a timetable of 3

2.2.3. At the Lycée

2.2.4. Higher Education

2.3. The languages concerned