Language teaching and learning strategies for understanding and communication

Fighting the school failure through early languages teaching: the street French-Arab elementary school of Tangier

Paris, France

The schooling of foreign students in France has always caused problems. "L'école unique" (The unified school) of Jules Ferry did not make room for taking into account specific features. Today, with all the particular devices such as the Priority Education Zones ZEP, the system has more freedom to introduce differences in the school. In order to fight against school failure, the languages and their connection to knowledge may find a place in the curriculum. Thus, the street school of Tangier (in the 9th district of Paris) proposes, along with a classical teaching, a bilingual French-Arab education since the elementary school.

In this school, located in the "multicultural" district of Paris, children with their parents' consent learn the Arab language since the elementary school. In this bilingual school, children follow a disciplinary teaching in Arabic, certain courses in mathematics, history, geography and gymnastics are not taught in that language. Nevertheless, the subjects remain defined by the official programs of the French elementary school.
The innovation lies in the fact that, for the first time, this school proposes to provide Moroccan origin students (a majority in this zone) and also other children optimal Arabic learning conditions. It is used as a disciplinary teaching vector, whose status changes now from a study object to a cognitive tool.

The program is oriented toward the fight against negative representations linked to immigration languages and toward a valuation of original languages and cultures. Thus, the program participates in the social cohesion. But beyond that, the goal of the experience is that of solving the problem of massive school failure by developing in children a bilingual and bicultural competence that will allow the acquisition of both intellectual flexibility and openness toward the others. It gets rid of courses for foreigners, learned as classes that are discriminatory for the students who attend them, and establishes truly bilingual classes. Starting from this fact, this experience introduces an additional bilingualism, since the two learned languages are socially valued.

M. G. Besson Directeur
French-Arab Elementary School
13 rue de Tanger
75019 Paris
France

Institutional Partners
CEFISEM de l'Ecole Normale des Batignoles de Paris
Financial Partners
The Algerian, Tunisian and Moroccan states are in charge of the Arab teachers' salaries.

The experience, which started as an experimental test, enters a new phase as of 1995.

Internal evaluations and National Education inspectors' evaluation.