Typological biases and exclusion of learners: a case study of determiners in French language textbooks
Morgane Jourdain (KU Leuven)
Background. It has been documented that in Belgium, refugees have more difficulties learning French than EU migrants, and that their difficulties cannot be (at least solely) explained by disparities in education levels (Ahmad Yar and Jourdain, 2018). One plausible explanation could be that refugees’ L1s are typologically more distant from French than the L1s of other migrants. A large study on 50,000 migrants learning Dutch shows indeed a strong correlation between learners’ L1 and their TL performance (Schepens, van Hout and Jaeger, 2020).
Research goal. What remains to be understood is whether language courses offered to refugees allow them to overcome the distance between French and their L1. The study by Ahmad Yar and Jourdain (2018) reveals that refugees who learn French in classes alongside with EU migrants report facing significant problems of comprehension during the class. Therefore, our aim is to understand whether French as a Foreign Language (FFL) classes exhibit some inherent biases, by omitting or only introducing briefly some linguistic concepts that are similar across Western European languages, even though they are different in refugees’ L1s.
Case study. We choose to study articles to tackle biases in curricula, because all Romance and Germanic languages mark definiteness with articles. This phenomenon is quite rare, as only 8% of the languages of the world have both definite and indefinite articles (Dyer, 1989). We will compare the types of exercises 8 FFL workbooks provide to train students using definite and indefinite articles with the types of exercises that they provide regarding masculine and feminine articles, which do not exist in all Romance and Germanic languages. The workbooks selected are in use in FFL schools attended by refugees in Belgium.
Results. 1. Workbooks provide fewer exercises to practice the definite/indefinite distinction (12 exercises) than to practice the gender distinction (46). 2. Articles are only taught in A1 textbooks, and are not developed in higher levels. 3. 13 exercises on definite determiners out of 33 concern determiner use with names of countries, which is not a common feature of Romance and Germanic languages (1).
(1) French: La France
English: *The France
Spanish: *La Francia
Discussion and conclusion. Results show that for articles, FFL workbooks focus on features that differ between Romance and Germanic languages, but not with other languages. Definiteness is also treated as a beginner-level feature, while research shows that definiteness is a very complex concept to learn for learners whose L1 does not mark it, but easy for learners whose L1 marks it (Sleeman, 2004). Hence, not providing adequate practice puts some learners at a major disadvantage. Learners whose L1 is a Romance or Germanic language would be able to learn the definite/indefinite distinction through a positive transfer from their L1 into their L2 (Chen, 2020) but other learners do not have this opportunity. We will argue that more awareness of typological differences that exist among the languages of the world could lead to more inclusive language curricula, which is crucial for refugees to learn the local language.
References
Ahmad Yar, A. W., & Jourdain, M. (2018). L’enseignement des langues en Belgique : une enquête auprès de différentes catégories de migrants. Le Langage et l’Homme, 53(2), 19-34.
Dryer, M. S. & Haspelmath, M. (eds.) (2013). WALS Online (v2020.3) [Data set]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7385533
Schepens, J., Van Hout, R., & Jaeger, T. F. (2020). Big data suggest strong constraints of linguistic similarity on adult language learning. Cognition, 194, 104056.
Sleeman, P. (2004). The acquisition of definiteness distinctions by L2 learners of French. Linguistics in the Netherlands, 21(1), 158-168.