Aristotle University of Thessalonique & University of Poitiers

In September 2015 a conference was held in Poitiers (organised by the University of Poitiers) on the teaching of French as a Foreign Language (FFL) to learners who are native speakers of Less Widely Used and Less Widely Taught (LWULWT) languages. This conference helped foster reflection of both teachers and researchers about difficulties encountered in the teaching/learning of these languages: lack of sound/comprehensive contrastive studies, teachers’ limited knowledge of the learners’ languages and cultures, influence of L2s on the learning of French as an L3, etc.

In May 2016, a second conference was held in Istanbul (organised by Istanbul University and the University of Poitiers). Its main objective was to bring together researchers and teachers interested in the teaching FFL to speakers of LWULWT languages, but also to debate more specifically the priorities for the teaching of FFL to learners whose mother tongues are syntactically and phonetically distant from French. The focus was mainly on the place of the teaching/learning of spoken French.

The third instance of this series of conferences was held in June 2017 in Nicosia (organised jointly by the University of Cyprus, Cyprus University of Technology and the University of Poitiers) and aimed to broaden the scope of reflection and to explore new ways of teaching not only FFL to speakers of LWULWT languages (e.g. French or English to Greek learners), but also LWULWT languages to different audiences (for example Turkish or Greek to learners).

The fourth edition of this conference will take place in Thessaloniki on 1-2 June 2018 (organised jointly by the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and the University of Poitiers). Special attention will be dedicated to teaching and learning both widely used languages and LWULWT languages. This conference aims also to focus on two specific research questions: integration of ICT in language classroom as well as compilation and use of learner corpora.

 

 

The following lines of reflection are proposed:

Axis 1: Cultural and language interaction between widely used languages and LWULWT languages;

Axis 2: Use of literature in foreign language teaching;

Axis 3: Use of ICT to improve interactions between learners and learners and teachers;

Axis 4: The contribution of learner corpora to foreign language teaching.

 

The languages of the conference are French and English.

 

Deadline for submission of proposals: February 28, 2018 (deadline extended: 15 mars, 2018)div>