Intensive French is a three-year language acquisition research project funded by the Department of Canadian Heritage, in order to design a program which can be implemented in the regular core French classroom which would enable students to develop higher levels of communicative competence than those generally achieved. The program has been implemented at the grade six level in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador with the approbation of the provincial Department of Education. The theoretical foundations of the program, its practical implementation in different school settings, curriculum resources and recommended teaching strategies will be discussed. An overview of preliminary evaluation results for the first year of the experience will also be presented.
Claude Germain, Directeur du Département de linguistique et de didactique des langues à l'UQÀM, est bien connu pour ses recherches et publications dans le domaine de l'enseignement des langues secondes.
Joan Netten, professeur à Memorial University of Newfoundland, a été responsable des programmes de formation des enseignants du français langue seconde. Ses recherches portent surtout sur les programmes d'immersion en français et la compétence de communication des apprenants.