About CASLT

Histoire de l'ACPLS

Past Projects & Research

National Core French Study

The National Core French Study (1985-1989)

The National Core French Study was a pan-Canadian co-operative project in programming which was spread out over 4 years. The project was set up by CASLT in 1985, the purpose of the study was to re-examine the teaching of French as a Second Language (FSL) within Core French.

The study had three main objectives:

• to examine Core French programs across the country;
• to identify the strengths and weaknesses of these programs in order to be able 
• to improve them;
• to compile and share ideas, experiments and results of research in this field.

The results of research revealed that second language teaching in Core French put more emphasis on the linguistic contents above all. Thus, even if the students developed their knowledge of French, they did not improve their communication skills in this language.

H. H. (David) Stern then proposed a model of multidimensional syllabus as possible solution to fill the gaps Core French (the fact that these programs worked out from the purely linguistic point of view). Stern believed that such a model would significantly increase the effectiveness of FSL learning in Core French. The final report of the Study recognizes a multidimensional syllabus model, founded on a communicative/experiential approach to language teaching and learning. The report also contains two other recommendations:

• that the provinces and the territories carry out changes to their FSL programming following the results of the study;
• that educational publishers offer educational materials that are in line with the new ways of teaching FSL.