Didactique du Français Langue Seconde au Canada: État des lieux de la recherche

Understanding the landscape of research on teaching and learning French as a Second Language (FSL) in Canada requires, in part, an analysis and examination of the different yet complementary epistemological traditions that tend to be used by Francophone and Anglophone communities of researchers. Cutting-edge research in Canada, regardless of theoretical framework, tends to focus not only on the improvement of students’ language skills and related teaching practices but also, increasingly, on the complexities and challenges around how teachers form and develop their identities as French teachers. In particular, it is clear that many of the challenges articulated by French teachers in response to the contemporary realities of their classrooms arise from lived tensions around the formation and re-definition of their professional identities. Thus, in Canada, the twin pressures of linguistic and cultural diversity that exist within the FSL teaching community, the FSL teacher education community, and the FSL research community encourage us both to question the traditional foundations of la didactique and to consider ways in which we might move its borders.