The teaching of languages for specific purposes is a research discipline in its own right, at the crossroads of different fields of linguistics (e.g. corpus linguistics and sociolinguistics), didactics and psychology. The Ecole des Langues Vivantes aims to position its professional practice at a high level of quality and ensures research into the didactics of languages for specific purposes in order to nurture innovative teaching that meets the needs of the academic community and society.
Current scientific projects
L'initiation à l'anglais scientifique - Natassia Schutz and Aude Hansel
According to the CEFR, level B2 is required for scientific discourse, but in French-speaking Belgium, the aim is rather level B1 at the end of secondary school. The early introduction of scientific English at university runs counter to Vygotski's (1978) educational principles. Research shows that offering content that is too advanced can be counterproductive and discourage students. However, postponing this learning until the end of the curriculum is not ideal, as it is necessary from the very first disciplinary work. In this context, we have developed various schemes introducing students to written (through abstract writing) and oral scientific English (cf. The It's Not Rocket Science competition) exposing students to scientific English at B1 level.
Our research focuses in particular on:
- the academic register and linguistic elements that can be addressed at B1 level
- motivation and the importance of task authenticity
- initiating digital skills
- the role of the teacher and the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration
Past scientific projects
University student autonomy: self-regulated learning - Mireille Houart and François-Xavier Fiévez
Collaborative research was carried out to design pedagogical activities, based on a model of support for self-regulated learning, in the context of teaching English in the flipped classroom. In this context, learning concerns both effective study management (time, resources, volition...) and learning English (writing, memorizing...).
Learn more about UNamur's research portal
COBRA project - Guy Deville
CoBRA (Corpus Based Reading Assistant) is an interactive tool to help with reading foreign language texts (English and Dutch) for French-speaking learners of all levels. The CoBRA reading module can be integrated into the WebCampus platform (Moodle). In 2010, CoBRA received the e-@ward in the "teachers" category at the 5th Forum des Technologies de l'Information et de la Communication (under its previous name E-Lex).