This presentation explores the idea of integrating language-related content into the Modern Foreign Languages curriculum from the perspective of the teacher. Based on data gathered during a professional development project, teachers’ understanding of and response to the idea of MFL ‘content’ will be presented and implications discussed.
Recent discussions around languages education in the Netherlands have given rise to proposals for major reform. At the heart of these proposals lies the idea that language education should focus not only on language proficiency but also on areas of language-related content such as literature, cultural studies, language awareness and linguistics. Sparked by the abovementioned proposals, the study at the centre of this presentation follows a group of MFL teachers and teacher educators in the Netherlands during a one-year professional development project. In the course of the project, the participants carried out action research in their classrooms around the theme of ‘Content in MFL’. The aims of the study were to identify the areas of content that teachers viewed as relevant to their MFL teaching, as well as the extent to which the introduction of MFL-specific content addressed teachers’ concerns regarding their practice. Perceived obstacles to the refocused curriculum were also addressed. Findings suggest that, while emphasis on content provided an impetus for rethinking approaches to MFL teaching, language proficiency remained the central concern of the teachers in this study. Implications for the further development of the proposed content-focus curriculum are discussed.
