The "experiential" in didactics of languages-cultures: an attempt at modelling

Abstract

This text is the English translation of the article entitled “L’expérientiel en didactique des langues-cultures: essai de modélisation” (online April 2, 2021). In didactics of languages-cultures (DLC), "the experiential" can be defined as any form of experience lived by the learner directly in a foreign language, which is elicited and exploited by the teacher for the purposes of teaching-learning a foreign language-culture. It can also be described by its notional components -authenticity, spontaneity, experience, affectivity, emotionality, pleasure, confidence, conviviality, imagination, creativity, relationality, interactivity, corporeality...)- and the four techniques most commonly used in school didactics to provoke this experience: play, song, poetry and drama. Implementations of the experiential can be classified on a continuum that ranges from the most isolated ("techniques") to the most integrated ("methodologies", often referred to as "unconventional"), via approaches integrated with conventional methodologies. And they can be linked, as techniques or approaches, to one or other of the existing methodological matrices: active, communicative-intercultural, plurilingual-pluricultural and action-oriented. At the end of this article, we present a model that crosses these different typologies, and which a priori covers the whole problematic of experiential learning in DLC. (English translation online June 3, 2023).

French original version: 2021c.

Also available at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/371276689.