Contenu du sommaire : Grammaires d'enseignants et grammaires d'apprenants de langue étrangère, sous la direction de Jean-Claude Beacco et Rémy Porquier

Around 1630, J. A. Comenius wrote two definitive books about what he was one of the first to call 'didactics'. One of them presents a programme, and was later published with the title Didactica magna, the other implements this "art of teaching" in a Latin textbook known as the Ianua linguarum reserata. In spite of the fact that they envisage things in a mediaeval way, these books represent a change of viewpoint in the lengthy socio-historical construction of western reflection on the teaching and learning of languages, more specifically on its relationship to grammar. Comenius initiates a change by setting this reflection in a large curricular project where languages are learnt "always one after the other and never simultaneously", going from mother tongue to dead languages. Beginners learn the language from an "epitome" written so that the most frequent words and phrases are presented as "the ready made key to a grammar" adapted "to the language that is already known, and where only the differences are stressed", i. e. which takes the language they already use into account, as well as the way it was taught to them. These proposals are still, nowadays, indicative of a sort of "educational utopia".

First, a distinction is made between "grammar for learning", as presented in teaching books or exercises for the language classroom, and "grammar for teaching" which are also quite different from " scientifical grammars" because of their tendency to simplify the definitions and rely on the "teaching know- how". It is objected to these "grammars for teaching" to be unable to help beginners in French, either because their definitions are extremely simplified, and therefore dangerous, or because the students cannot read them at all. Secondly, the power of the "pedagogical grammars" in the classroom is questioned. It seems that "traditional grammar" is used more and more, leaving less and less space to functional or notional grammar. This is probably a sign that the teachers themselves do not give enough importance to the modern theories in linguistics, especially to semantics and utterance linguistics (« linguistique de renonciation »). Finally, it is suggested that without the help of theories, practices of language teaching and didactics of languages might actually stagnate.

In this paper we develop the idea that a grammatical description combining lexis, syntax and semantics offers better knowledge of the mechanisms which constitute meaning in simple and complex sentences as well as in discourse. We present two examples of descriptive parameters for sentences with orage and courage on the one hand, with words expressing the idea of AIM on the other hand. We think this way of describing sentences and discourse can be useful in the organization of learning data and activities in language teaching.

This article deals with the relationship between the metalinguistic perceptions of Spanish migrants who have been living in France for many years and whose appropriation of French has been largely informal through their social and linguistic integration, and their linguistic output in French. The latter is analysed with regard to zones of fluctuation and stability in their terminal grammar. The data take the form of interviews and oral expression of their life-stories including their linguistic autobiographies on the one hand, and linguistic introspection on the other. The aim is to describe a near-native state of interlanguage, where the spoken form has attained a stage of stability and /or fossilization, in order to characterise an advanced non-native variety of French.

The teaching of spoken French L1 or L2 has always been considered as a difficult objective. In order to understand better the reasons for this phenomenon, we took the opportunity of the present renewal of French L2 teaching in the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium, to undertake the data collection of teachers discourse via spontaneous observations and assessments made during classroom role-plays. The analysis of our corpus shows that teachers have inherited views on language and learning which are not adapted to the new pedagogical model for the communicative teaching of French L2. Most puzzling was not so much the existence of these double binds as the fact they persist. It appears that successful communication as seen in the French classes observed relies on a common schooling heritage among teachers and pupils. It is that very heritage which, from a psychosocial point of view, allows the class to interact in a rewarding way and exist as a group. This is true for any human communication based on a minimum of shared knowledge. It is possible to escape that teaching inheritance, so remote from the true linguistic workings of verbal interactions in French, by the use of reflexive training techniques and an outsider's point of view. communication based on a minimum of shared knowledge. It is possible to escape that teaching inheritance, so remote from the true linguistic workings of verbal interactions in French, by the use of reflexive training techniques and an outsider's point of view.

This article bears upon the necessity, as regards foreign language learning and teaching, to identify and characterise ordinary (as opposed to academic) knowledge, a specific and important component of learning /teaching situations and contexts. In this respect, idiomatic expressions, which come under grammar and /or lexicon and /or discourse, may be considered as a specific type of ordinary knowledge, on account of their diversity and of the cross-linguistic perceptions and representations associated. Contrastive bilingual inventories of idiomatic expressions, on an extensive and structured basis, are suggested. Not only they are useful for learning /teaching at advanced levels, but they also contribute to an understanding of the morphosyntactic image of the foreign language, such as it is perceived by the non-native learners, as a part of of a wider body of representations.

This paper focuses on the specific status, both from linguistic and didactic points of view, of those short discourse units on the borders of grammar and lexis, often called in French « mots-phrases » [single-word sentences], and which we choose to call « locutions-énoncés » (allô, bonjour, au revoir, ça y est, attention, au secours) since they can function fundamentally as full discourse units, although many grammars include most of them within the category of interjections. According to various criteria, including their oral characteristics, they are shown to perform a wide variety of pragmatic and discourse functions (as already suggested by Tesnière in 1965) where the meanings are closely associated with specific prosodie patterns. Secondly, the place and the role of these units in the learning /teaching of French as a second or foreign language is considered, as a component of discursive competence in relation to oral interaction including intonation.