Traditions in Foreign Language Teaching [FLT] may be similar or differ. Therefore we need to compare languages policies, teaching programs and textbooks in different countries. In our communication we will first compare FLT in France and in the Netherlands and then how French and Dutch are taught as foreign languages.
Foreign / second language teaching [FLS /FLT] has a long and rich history, which needs an analysis (see, for example, Documents Sihfles). Depending on countries and languages, there are possibly similarities and / or specific characteristics, due to traditions which may differ or not. In our presentation, we will focus on France and on the Netherlands, both known for a strong FLT / FLS tradition, which are consequently interesting to compare. Our analysis will be relating to foreign language policies in these two countries since 1945. We will describe and compare which roles usually play language curricula and the different languages taught at school and at university. We will focus then more specifically on the teaching of French and Dutch as foreign languages. During the last thirty years there have been many changes on the languages policies in France and in the Netherlands, due firstly to a growing number of migrants and secondly to new digital developments, as for example a new digital strategy at the university (Van der Sanden, 2015). These changes may be reflected in turn into textbooks using to teach French and Dutch as foreign and also as second languages, a topic that we will introduce during our presentation, based on a selection that we commonly use with our students at the university.
Bibliography and sitography:
https://journals.openedition.org/dhfles/
Van der Sanden, Nathalie (2015). Enseigner les langues en Europe : quelle pédagogie universitaire ? Les langues modernes, Enseigner à l'université, un métier qui s'apprend ? n°3, 36-41.
