The methodological reflection in the teaching of french since the publication of the CEFR, an anemic field in need of healthy polemics

Abstract

After an analysis of the underlying epistemology of the CEFR, characterized by the "ideology of consensual communication", the "ideology of expertise" and the "scientistic ideology", the author makes a very critical assessment of the current situation of the didactics of French as a foreign language (FFL) in France. 1) The question of methodology, evacuated by the authors of the CEFR and deserted by the majority of didacticians, constitutes a work in progress to be urgently resumed. 2) "[The] reverence of most French didacticians towards this document, on which for years they have poured ad nauseam respectful glosses worthy of biblical exegesis, as well as the silence of almost all the others (including the authors of the CEFR), are cruel revelations and a damning historical testimony of the level of intellectual anemia to which the didactics of the FFL has fallen in France." 3) "[...] it seems that the whole didactics of the FFL in France has become too anemic to carry and carry out public controversies on any issue, and that it can only generate latent dissensions or aborted debates."

French original version available (2015f).