Oral and plurilingual practices in Lebanon – comparative study

Abstract

Lebanon, a small country with a multilingual and multi-faith vocation, underwent an educational reform in 1998 which was
applied in the two educational sectors, the private and the public. The latter was interested in teaching / learning languages
and in particular in oral competence, which was new in Lebanese schools. This is why we asked ourselves, in the form
of a balance sheet, 20 years after this reform: what are the different parameters that determine today the teaching / learning
of the oral French language in Lebanon? How do learners' plurilingual practices take place during French lessons? Indeed,
our recordings in the classes (transcribed and analyzed) have shown us that, whatever the teachers' initial convictions, we are
obliged to make an important place in the mother tongues of students. In line with researchers such as Py, Castellotti, Rispail
or Blanchet, we will therefore analyze, in our corpus (10 French sessions recorded in 2 colleges in the Tripoli region), how is the
transition from one language to other, what are the various languages requested, on whose initiative and what didactic use
is made by teachers. Our observations of classes relating to two different establishments, in two different districts of our region,
we will add to our study a comparative dimension aimed at demonstrating that, according to socio-cultural backgrounds, the
  relationships between languages and relationships with relationships between languages and relationships with
plurilingual practices vary, as much for students as for teachers, which places our point in a clearly socio-educational
perspective. Our corpus collected in the classes will be enriched by interviews conducted with teachers, students and school
principals. Our argument will lead to some proposals relating to the training of language teachers.