Honors Theses
Date of Award
2010
Document Type
Undergraduate Thesis
Department
English
First Advisor
Olivier Tonnerre
Relational Format
Dissertation/Thesis
Abstract
This thesis is an examination of external influences on the foreign language classroom. I evaluate national policy and legislature, textbooks, and national tests as possible determinants of foreign language teaching methods used in the United States and France. I chose to compare the American system to the French system as a result of the relative success of foreign language education in France and my ability to read policy and curriculum in French. By comparing the foreign language education systems in the two countries, I hope to determine what types of weaknesses in American foreign language instruction practices hinder language acquisition. In evaluating the influence of national policy and legislature on foreign language education, I first examine the current political environment gamering attention for foreign language education policy from the governments in the United States and France. I then place foreign language instmction in the context of overall educational policies in the two countries by citing its inclusion in recent educational reforms. Additionally, both countries have published national standards or curriculum directives to guide the process of fostering communicative competence in the classroom, and I compare those publications in the final section of the chapter. Because national standards do not provide a daily syllabus, textbook writers are charged with transforming the standards into daily classroom material. In the second chapter, I examine the coherence of communicative and cultural instruction in major textbooks with national standards and directives. Though national standards and textbooks shape the syllabus of classroom learning, national testing dictates the requirements of student capabilities. The third chapter analyzes the efficacy of national tests in measuring the commumcative competence standard in American and French foreign language policy. The evaluation of these three external influences on classroom instruction reveals diverging ideologies concerning language instruction in American policy, textbooks, and national tests. Conversely, the methods and goals of foreign language education in France essentially coherent across the three evaluated determinants for instruction. A more coordinated effort among influences on American foreign language education would perhaps produce a more standardized level of communicative competence among American foreign language students.
Recommended Citation
Hargrave, Halley Anne, "Communicative Development through a Comparative Lens: A Snapshot of Foreign Language Education in the United States and France" (2010). Honors Theses. 2343.
https://egrove.olemiss.edu/hon_thesis/2343
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