As many as 40 French academicians, scholars and teachers congregated at the Department of French in Madurai Kamaraj University for a two-day workshop on ‘Recent trends in teaching of French in India: Contextualisation and perspectives’, here on Friday.
The workshop, organised by the Association of Indian Teachers of French (AITF) aims to redefine and introduce effective techniques of teaching French to non-native speaks to teachers and research scholars here, said K. Madanagobalane, President of the association.
“Previously, French was taught to non-native speakers through translation method which wasn’t effective enough to help them communicate in the language. By introducing principles of the Common European Framework (CEF), which is followed across Europe to teach the language, we hope to better the teaching and learning process,” he explained.
“We are now looking at how to effectively adapt this CEF method of teaching to the Indian framework. In the next few sessions, Yves Loiseau, our resource person from the Universite Catholique de l’Ouest in France, will seek to address the participants on the same,” said Mira Kamal from the French Department of the Madras University.
Mr. Yves Loiseau has been studying the teaching of French to a large group of learners at educational institutions in the country and has also been observing trends which govern the teaching of the language here.
“French language experts are in demand across educational institutions and the IT sector and they are paid well too. More students should be aware of the opportunities available and explore such options,” said S, Pannirselvame, Head of the French Department at Pondicherry University.
