Page 11 - The Ontario Curriculum, Grades 9 to 12: French as a Second Language – Core, Extended, and Immersion, 2014

Authentic Oral Communication: Reception, Production, and Interaction The main purpose of learning a language is communication. Communication is a social act. In order to learn French, therefore, students need to see themselves as social actors communicating for real purposes. Teaching language as a system of disconnected and isolated components gives learners some knowledge of the language, but does not allow them to use the language effectively. In contrast, communicative and action-oriented approaches to teaching French put meaningful and authentic communication at the centre of all learning activities.
To reach their potential, students need to hear, see, use, and reuse French in meaningful yet developmentally appropriate contexts. One of the key terms in second-language learning is “comprehensible input”. It is the teacher’s responsibility to provide compre- hensible input, ensuring that the messages that students receive are understandable. Making the input relevant – to the learner, the context, the situation – is one way of doing this. Repetition and recycling are also integral to making input comprehensible. Effective comprehensible input must be slightly challenging in order to provide the scaffolding students need to be able to begin “producing” – that is, speaking and writing – French in an authentic way. In order to go beyond receptive skills, students need to use and negotiate the input they receive by conversing in authentic situations.
Interaction in French is essential in this curriculum. Research indicates that language in- struction must provide significant levels of meaningful communication and interactive feedback in the target language so that students can develop both language proficiency and cultural understanding.
Listening, Speaking, Reading, and Writing: Interconnected but Distinct In order to develop the skills necessary to become lifelong language learners, students will be given multiple opportunities to:
• listen and respond to texts and to others;
• speak and interact with others;
• read, view, and respond to a variety of texts;
• write a variety of texts for many different purposes and audiences.
Listening and speaking skills are the springboards to reading and writing. While the curriculum strikes a balance between these four distinct but interconnected skills, oral communication – listening and speaking – is paramount for second-language acquisition. If students hear it, they can say it. If students can say it, they can read it. And if students can read it, they can write it.
Development of Language Learning Strategies
Successful French language learners use a number of strategies to learn more effectively. These language learning strategies are often categorized as cognitive, metacognitive, and social/affective. Cognitive strategies involve the direct manipulation of the language itself, such as remembering information and understanding or producing messages in French. Metacognitive strategies involve planning, thinking about the learning process as it is taking place, and monitoring and evaluating one’s progress. Social and affective strategies enhance cooperation and help students regulate their emotions, motivations, and attitudes as they learn French through interacting with others.
INTRODUCTION
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