The way written French language is taught in a tertiary education context is linked to representations that language teachers have constructed of written French, whether French is their mother tongue or a foreign language. This doctoral thesis focuses on the nature and role of French linguistic and cultural representations in the teaching of the written word on the one hand, and, on the other, on the way in which these representations are dealt with by learners, especially in conjunction with what is acquired in writing in their first language.
Interviews carried out in Australia with lecturers (N=5) and students (N=30) of French shed light on some of the representations about written French that they have developed. The written assignments collected on 4 levels (N=200), which are annotated and evaluated, form part of the data and are to be confronted to the analyses drawn from the discursive data. These varied data constitute the analytical material and foundation of the thesis which will bring out proposals for the teaching of writing in foreign languages at a tertiary level. These proposals will be consolidated by observations on think-aloud protocols by the students of this sample.
This research is a contribution to an ongoing reflection on the theory of teaching a foreign language and culture, and focuses on one situation of teaching-learning writing in an Australian tertiary context. In particular, this interdisciplinary study (applied linguistics, pedagogy in language teaching, sociology, cognitive aspects of writing) aims at drawing useful conclusions for language teachers, learners and authors of language textbooks.
Key words : teaching and learning of writing – French as a foreign language – discourse analysis – Social representations – Relation to writing – qualitative research – case study – tertiary education in Australia
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