Seminar on research methodology for French as a foreign or second language

Teacher(s)

Bibauw Serge;

Language

French

Prerequisites

To have taken, or be taking at the same time, LROM2940 Didactics of French as a Foreign Language and Intercultural Studies.

Main themes

Epistemological aspects of interpretative research.
Technical dimension of such a research.
Collecting information : - observation - interview
Analysis and interpretation of the data
Critical dimension : criteria and " scientificity ".

Learning outcomes

At the end of this learning unit, the student is able to :
1	The objective is to get the students initiated to the reseach methodology, enabling them to have a critical judgement on research texts in didactics of French as a foreign language (for instance based on experiments). It also allows them to make some interpretative research for the dissertation.

Content

Presentation and observation of model studies for different empirical research designs in language teaching and learning, particularly in French as a foreign language. The main qualitative and quantitative approaches, as well as certain data collection and analysis techniques, will be covered, with a little more attention paid to incidence studies and quantitative and statistical data.

1. Descriptive study
   1. Data collection instrument: test.
   2. Analysis: central tendency (mean) and dispersion (standard deviation). 
2. Correlation study
   1. Analysis: Pearson's r correlation coefficient and p-value.
3. Experimental study
   1. Data collection instrument: attitude or perception survey.
   2. Analysis: Student's t-test and Cohen's d-test for effect size
4. Case study and mixed methods
5. Presenting a study in an article, report or dissertation
   1. Structures
   2. Citations and references

Teaching methods

The seminar has a limited number of sessions. They will provide an opportunity to study a number of empirical study models in detail, starting with the reading of an article from a scientific journal and then putting them into practice through a group project carried out during the four-month term.

Evaluation methods

• Written exam (40%) validating mastery of the essential concepts covered in the course.
• Collection and/or analysis of empirical data and writing of a research report (40%). The theme and forms of the empirical work will be imposed on all students, who will thus participate collectively in a research project.
• Pre-reading and collaborative annotation (10%) of the documents to be read on the Perusall platform. The platform automates this assessment.
• Class participation (10%), which is formative in nature (i.e. it does not assess the quality of participation, but rather encourages its occurrence), encouraging questions, interventions and comments, as well as active participation in group discussions and exercises. Systematic attendance is, therefore, expected and formally validated.

Other information

This seminar is highly recommended for any student intending to conduct a master's thesis on French as a foreign language (FLE) teaching.

Online resources

Moodle : https://moodle.uclouvain.be/course/view.php?id=9266

Bibliography

Des références et recommandations bibliographiques sont disponibles sur Moodle.
References and bibliographical recommendations are available on Moodle.

Teaching materials

• Tous les supports de cours sont disponibles sur Moodle : https://moodle.uclouvain.be/course/view.php?id=9266
• Course materials can be found on Moodle: https://moodle.uclouvain.be/course/view.php?id=9266

Faculty or entity

> ELAL