Matérialité de la médiation du sens en classe de langue pour enfants

• Main Author: Malory Leclère
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: ACEDLE 2018-09-01
• Series: Recherches en didactique des langues et des cultures
• Subjects: meaning mediation; teacher action; pedagogic tools; language learning; young learners; didactics
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/rdlc/3480

This article deals with how teachers mediate meaning with 6-7 year-old learners of French as a Second Language. Such practices are an actualization of teacher cognition, they will be analyzed in terms of how material they can be. Our enquiry concerns the role of pedagogic tools when teachers aim to scaffold processes of meaning elucidation and of discourse production. A distinction will be made between the central (planned) tool and secondary tools. We will show how the teacher’s anticipation of some language problems as well as the organization of how to mediate and what tool(s) to use will facilitate the co-construction of meaning in the class. Secondary tools play a key role in the construction of meaning and a key part in the shift from an individual to a collective level in pedagogic intervention. Finally, we will question the role such mediation plays in terms of acquisition by the learners.