| LAB Newsletter 14 |
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Interview of Albert Raasch with Mr. F. Weiss, a well known expert for French as a foreign language from the German-French border region. François Weiss, you have taught for many years at universities and French institutes abroad and shown great commitment to foreign language learning, and particularly French. With a large number of publications, you have established yourself as a widely known and high profile figure in the field of teaching French as a foreign language. As you originally come from Alsace and lived close to the Franco-German border for many years, you also have personal experience of the problems of neighbour languages in border regions. We would like to thank you for taking the time to speak to us about your activities and experiences.
1. You recently defined five pillars of bilingualism, which I would like to refer to, starting with the first pillar, which supports acquisition of the neighbour language - close proximity. Which opportunities does close proximity provide for people to learn the neighbour language? Obviously, the main advantage of close proximity is that it facilitates exchanges on all levels. It can play an important role, if there are regular tourism-based, cultural, economic, social and informal exchanges in the border regions aimed at helping people to get to know each other better, to accept one another as being different, without any apprehensions and on an equal footing. 2. The second pillar is the image that people have of their neighbours, which is also defined by historical experiences. Has it been your experience that the way, in which we perceive our neighbours, influences our attitudes towards their languages and learning these languages? History and its effects upon the socialisation of people living in border regions clearly influences their desire or refusal to learn the language spoken by their neighbours. It is clear that the rejection of German in Alsace after the end of the Second World War was not a rejection of the language but of Nazi Germany. It is always difficult to learn the language of the enemy or someone that you do not like. This dislike for German has largely disappeared, but has left behind a number of after-effects. 3. The third pillar is the advantage that one expects to gain from learning the neighbour language. To what extent (rightly or wrongly) does this desire to gain something useful influence the decisions of parents and children whether or not to learn the neighbour language? The practical aspect is only taken into consideration by a minority of parents, teachers and decision makers. However, officially everyone agrees that German is very important for the people of Alsace, approximately 70,000 of whom work in Germany or German-speaking Switzerland. 4. The importance of the neighbour language is also a crucial factor, when the neighbour language is compared to the rival lingua franca. Which arguments, in your experience, are the most convincing and ultimately decisive? English is increasingly taking root in the mentality of parents who are more and more convinced that it will be the lingua franca and that their children will have better chances of finding work if they know “globish”. 5. In public life, certain prejudices, concerning how difficult a particular language is to learn, represent an important factor. Are these preconceptions academically justified and therefore a useful basis for decisions for or against learning a language? German is considered to be more difficult to learn than English without anyone being able to say why. Some people argue that German uses word endings and that the sentence structure is very complicated. 6. In the region where you live, there is the so-called “dialect”, which exists alongside the national languages of French and German. Is the presence of this third “language”, which is actually the first language, a help or hindrance when learning the neighbour language? The dialect problem is two-fold. Firstly, it is gradually disappearing on a massive scale. Young parents no longer teach it to their children; they prefer to speak to them in French in order to prepare them for infant school, where everything is done in French, except in the bilingual schools where equal time is devoted to French and German. German will therefore be a foreign language for these pupils. It must also be pointed out that German has been and still is taught as a foreign language using learning methods designed for pupils living in all the different regions of France. There have been some exceptions thanks to the commitment of local teachers who have developed methods that take into account the pupils’ knowledge of this dialect. But do the people of Alsace not suffer from a certain ‘diglossia’ in relation to standard German, of which they do not have sufficient command, particularly in the areas of spoken and written expression? 7. The situation on the Alsace-Baden border is special in many respects. With which other border regions could it be compared? Our situation could perhaps be compared to that of the Netherlands, where the linguistic proximity of German and Holland is perhaps less significant than that of Alsace, and the gradual disappearance of the regional dialect must also be taken into account. 8. In the discussion relating to language policy, especially close attention is always paid to the statistics for the languages learnt in the border regions. Which tendencies strike you as characteristic of the last few years in your border region? The tendency is towards “all English”. Pupils that have studied German intensively (3 hours per week) can now start to learn English in the sixth class, in what are known as “dual language” sections. 9. In border regions, isolated attempts are being made to highlight regional topics in teaching resources and lessons, in order to stimulate an interest in the neighbour region. What has been your experience or what have you observed in this area? There is the “Regional Language and Culture” option for secondary education, but it has not been very popular. 10. Border regions always have a special status in any country, and this is not without implications for regional language policy. With this in mind, could you outline the differences that exist on each side of the nearby border? There are more and more similarities between our neighbours and ourselves due to the enthusiasm for English (cf. the attitude of parents in Baden who are crying out for French to be replaced by English in primary schools) 11. Learning the neighbour language in the border regions calls for and enables a special approach to teaching, which uses the close proximity to the neighbour language as an opportunity. Can this teaching approach be a model for foreign language teaching away from the border regions and possibly even lead to innovative stimuli? I am not aware of any interesting experiments in this field on this side of the Rhine. 12. In my opinion, the convergence of the border regions represents an important step towards a united Europe. Do you share this view? Of course, I would delighted if things were to move further in this direction. |
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