L’enseignement de l’allemand langue étrangère en France en crises : pour une transition vers une ergonomie cognitive de l’éducation au plurilinguisme

Abstract

It's well known that the French State has a conflictual relationship with multilingualism, and plurilingualism. It was only very recently, from the middle of the 20th century, that France began to take linguistic plurality into consideration, mainly for economic, political and strategic reasons. However, with the exception of certain border regions, which have recently benefited from specific measures to educate or promote a regional or cross-border language, plurilingualism is struggling to find its place in France. Some languages, resulting from multiple immigrations, whether source languages or heritage languages, are ignored or devalued; others, despite their international status, receive little recognition or support compared to English language. The case of the German foreign language in France is a prototypical example. Despite the major leadership role played by the Franco-German couple within the European Union, the professional prospects, and many other economic and social strengths and opportunities, the German language is less and less institutionally supported and less and less studied, including in the Région Grand Est (if not in the border areas of Alsace and Lorraine). After outlining the state of German as a foreign language teaching in France outside the border areas, and correlating it with the principles of language education policy in France, the aim of this paper will be to propose, not a renewal, but a transition of foreign language teaching towards an ergonomic education in plurilingualism.