Apariencias y realidades en la aplicación de la approche communicative

Abstract

Judging by the classroom planning programmes defined for secondary school teachers of French, the acceptance and implementation of the Communicative Approach have been exemplary. However, our observations of twenty-five schools revealed a somewhat different picture. We discovered conceptual confusion in the Official Guidelines and in the aims of the books, as well as a general lack of knowledge concerning the teaching of French as a foreign language. However, the main reason that the Communicative Approach has not been fully integrated into the classroom is the teachers’ lack of proficiency. We have carried out our own assessment of the sample, based on the main points of the teacher’s methodolo­gy questioned by the CEF. Of particular note was a tendency to follow only certain sections of the books, ignoring open-ended activities and individual student work. However, teachers feel the need to add more lexical and grammatical contents. Hence, the level is very low and the performance is poor.