TESTER LE DEVELOPPEMENT DE LA CONSCIENCE METALINGUISTIQUE DANS UN PARCOURS DE TELETANDEM EN LANGUE FRANCAISE : RESULTATS PRELIMINAIRES D’UNE ETUDE PILOTE

Testing the development of metalinguistic awareness in a teletandem experience in French language : preliminary results of a pilot study · This article presents a pilot study on the administration of a test for the development of metalinguistic awareness (MLA, henceforth) in the context of a teletandem system for Italian-speaking university students learning French. We will first discuss the theoretical framework within the research on MLA and its role in foreign language didactics. Since measuring this awareness also means helping it to progress, we will present a system to assess and develop MLA by using an MLA test. We will then describe the structure we have configurated starting from the French version of this test (Pinto & El Euch 2015) and its application to the context in which we proposed to work. Our French Teletandem is a partnership between the University of Clermont-Auvergne with its learners of FLE at Master’s level, and the Italian universities of Rome - “Sapienza” and Roma Tre in Rome, with their students in Foreign Languages and Literatures, who are learning French at bachelor’s and master’s levels. The preliminary results of this pilot study, obtained with 13 cases, are encouraging for what concerns the introduction of the MLA test as part of the teletandem itself, as they show a progression in the levels of MLA observed before and after the teletandem course.