French language

“A
abattre son jeu (i) show one’s hand (cards). Lorsqu’il abattit son jeu, son adversaire sauta de joie. (ii) (figuré) to reveal one’s plan. Je ne compte pas abattre mon jeu au prochain procès.

abois, être aux ~ to be at bay. Je suis aux abois depuis que je me suis fait licencier.

abouler (vt, argot) to bring; to hand over; to cough up. (i) Aboule l’oseille. (ii) “Aboule le fric” lui dit le malfrat en le menaçant.

abreuver qn d’injures, de coups literally, to shower s.o. with insults, blows. Ces deux hommes l’ont abreuvé de coups suite à un désaccord.

accro (adj et nom) (i) junkie (ii) a nut (for or about) someone or something. Je suis accro au chocolat, c’est plus fort que moi.

affaire, être à son ~ to be in one’s element.”

Excerpt From: Gunnar Sewell. “Informal French Expressions and their English Equivalents.” iBooks.

Acquisition of intensifying constructions in
English by French-speaking CLIL and non-CLIL learners

In this contribution I will present the research domain, objectives and methodology of a new interdisciplinary project on Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) in French speaking Belgium. CLIL is a didactic method in which school subjects are taught in a different target language than the mainstream school language. In particular my PhD research aims to gain insight in the acquisition of Dutch and English intensifying constructions by French-speaking CLIL and non-CLIL secondary school pupils. From a usage-based point of view, second language acquisition is presumed to be more complex than L1 acquisition because of the competition between the specific constructions of the foreign language with the L1 constructions (Tomasello 2003 ; Ellis & Cadierno 2009: 112). In Dutch and English adjectives and adverbs can be intensified through adverbial modification (heel goed /very good) and through prefixes (hypergevoelig / hypersensitive) and adjectival compounds (ijskoud /icecold). However in English adjectival compounds are less productive than in Dutch and in French they do not seem to exist at all. Thus, it can be assumed that French-speaking learners of Dutch and English will underuse the specific Germanic intensifying construction (adjectival compounds) and, inversely, overuse adverbial and prefixal modification by “constructional transfer” (Hiligsmann 1997). Since CLIL programs provide more second language input than non-CLIL programs and can be considered closer to L1 acquisition because of their inherent usage-based approach, we can expect a better acquisition of foreign intensifying constructions by CLIL pupils (Ellis & Cadierno 2009).  This will be tested carrying out a study during the 5th and 6th grade of different secondary schools in French-speaking Belgium providing CLIL or non-CLIL education in Dutch and/or English. The analysis will be based on a corpus of videotaped and transcribed spoken interactions, perception and production tests and collected written productions by pupils involved in Dutch and English CLIL programs and non-CLIL contexts (control groups). (308 words)

References
Ellis, N. & Cadierno, T. (2009). Constructing a Second Language. Introduction to the Special Section. Annual Review of Cognitive Linguistics 7, 111-139.

Hiligsmann, Ph. (1997). Linguïstische aspecten en pedagogische implicaties van de tussentaal van Franstalige M.O.-leerders van het Nederlands, Liège, Bibliothèque de la Faculté de Philosophie et Lettres de l'Université de Liège, Genève: Droz.

Tomasello, M (2003) Constructing a Language: A Usage-Based Theory of Language Acquisition, Harvard University Press.

In this paper, we test the L2 Status Factor (Bardel & Falk, 2007) by examining to what extent Dutch secondary school students (13–15 years) prefer L2 English over L1 Dutch in L3 French acquisition, and we study the influence of L2 education by comparing an English immersion curriculum vs. a regular Dutch curriculum. We investigate verb placement in declarative root clauses, viz. V-to-T movement, where the finite verb moves to T in French but not in English and V-to-C movement, in which the V2-rule applies in Dutch but not in French. We report data from a Grammaticality Judgement Task. The results indicate that in the immersion group there is significantly more influence from English than from Dutch. In the regular group, the L1 and the L2 are both important sources of transfer.

Les auteurs proposent une approche originale et novatrice de l'évaluation des compétences en langues. Ils font un état des lieux du marché international des certifications et montrent le fort enjeu qu'elles représentent pour les candidats et les décideurs politiques.

Vous découvrirez une version actualisée de ce qu'est aujourd'hui, l'évaluation des compétences considérée dans de nombreux pays, mais encore trop peu en France, comme une spécialité à part entière en didactique des langues étrangères.
Cet ouvrage accompagnera l'enseignant dans sa classe, le responsable d'institution éducative ou le concepteur d'épreuves dans leur recherche de dispositifs évaluatifs plus pertinents et plus éthiques. Il est également destiné aux étudiants qui visent à devenir enseignants de FLE ou cadres pédagogiques au sein d'un établissement du réseau culturel français à l'étranger.