Des lycéens et l'anglais : représentations sociales d'une langue étrangère : sens et valeur formatrice d'une discipline
Institution:
Paris 13Disciplines:
Directors:
Abstract EN:
We have made a comparative study of the way the students of three high schools from very different social backgrounds perceive english, based on a survey through questionaires and interviews. We have highlighted the fact that beyond the common views concerning english (that it is an international and utilitarian language, that the process of learning english requires memory rather than logic, that culture and language are separate, etc. ), there are features which differenciate students from the disadvantaged social classes and those from well-off social backgrounds. English even appears as a subject which accentuates the social divisions in so far as the ease with which pupils link school and outside experience is particularly helpful. Socially disadvantaged students with learning difficulties often lack the ability to control their own language though this is what one needs to do at school. In these circumstances some of these students fail to find any point in classroom activities and give up. The recognition of these various facts led us to question the role of a school system which seems unwilling to counteract certain narrow conceptions of language (seen as a mere means of communication), of learning (limited to the acquisition of a skill) and which does not enable students to go beyond a stereotyped vision of the english-speaking world. By systematically rejecting the social and cultural aspects of a language, which prove essential to make it work, the school system does not equip students to communicate with foreigners in the best conditions. It takes away from classroom activities meanings which could arise from the connection with the students' own experience and which could help to motivate all types. It does not encourage an awareness of the fact that different cultures have their own vision of the world nor does it counter ethnocentrism, therefore depriving the learning of a foreign language of valuable educational contributions.
Abstract FR:
Nous avons etudie de facon comparative les representations que des eleves de trois etablissements socialement contrastes se font de l'anglais, a partir d'une enquete par questionnaires et entretiens. Nous avons pu mettre en evidence, au-dela des points consensuels courants (langue internationale et utilitaire, apprentissage faisant plus appel a la memorisation qu'a la logique, dissociation langue culture, regard "touristique" sur le monde anglophone, etc. ) que les lyceens d'origine populaire et ceux issus des categories socio-culturelles aisees se distinguent par de nombreux traits. L'anglais apparait meme comme une discipline qui accentue les clivages sociaux dans la mesure ou la facilite a instaurer un rapport entre l'ecole et les experiences exterieures se revele particulierement utile. Le rapport distancie au langage qui caracterise l'apprentissage scolaire de la langue pose egalement probleme aux eleves en difficulte des milieux populaires. Dans ces conditions certains de ces eleves ne parviennent plus a trouver du sens aux activites de la classe et se demobilisent ce constat amene a s'interroger sur le role de l'ecole qui ne semble pas chercher a lutter contre les conceptions reductrices de la langue (purement communicative) de l'apprentissage (limite par beaucoup a l'acquisition d'un savoir-faire) ou permettre de depasser une vision stereotypee des anglophones. En evacuant assez systematiquement les dimensions sociales et culturelles d'une langue, pourtant indispensables a son fonctionnement, elle ne prepare pas a communiquer avec des etrangers dans les meilleures conditions. Elle prive le travail de classe d'un contenu en prise avec la realite susceptible de mobiliser tous les eleves. Elle ne developpe pas la prise de conscience de la relativite culturelle, la lutte contre l'ethnocentrisme, et la reflexion sur l'alterite qui pourraient apporter une veritable dimension formatrice a l'apprentissage d'une langue etrangere.