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This book demonstrates how foreign language textbook analysis can inform future materials development to improve foreign language teaching. Through chronological analysis of French textbooks in the United States, this book explores the representations of Canada and Quebec in French beginner textbooks produced from 1960 to 2010. Chapelle couples a large collection of 65 textbooks with a social-semiotic qualitative analysis of the genres, language and images that communicate Quebec's cultural narrative to learners. Findings about the amount and type of content are presented by decade to track the trends in foreign language teaching and changes in Quebec's representation. Particular attention is given to how language politics is presented to students through text and images. This book will be of interest to scholars of Canadian Studies, Quebec Studies and Second Language Acquisition, as well as foreign language materials developers.
List of contents
Chapter 1. The Significance of Culture in Language Teaching.- Chapter 2. Québec's Cultural Narrative and French Textbooks.- Chapter 3. Québec Content in Text.- Chapter 4. Québec content in images.- Chapter 5. A Closer Look at Language Politics.- Chapter 6. Strengthening Cultural Content in First-Year Textbooks.
About the author
Carol A. Chapelle is Distinguished Professor of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Iowa State University. She is editor of the
Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics (2013), co-editor of the Cambridge Applied Linguistics Series, past president of the American Association for Applied Linguistics, and former editor of
TESOL Quarterly.
Summary
This book demonstrates how foreign language textbook analysis can inform future materials development to improve foreign language teaching. Through chronological analysis of French textbooks in the United States, this book explores the representations of Canada and Quebec in French beginner textbooks produced from 1960 to 2010. Chapelle couples a large collection of 65 textbooks with a social-semiotic qualitative analysis of the genres, language and images that communicate Quebec's cultural narrative to learners. Findings about the amount and type of content are presented by decade to track the trends in foreign language teaching and changes in Quebec’s representation. Particular attention is given to how language politics is presented to students through text and images. This book will be of interest to scholars of Canadian Studies, Quebec Studies and Second Language Acquisition, as well as foreign language materials developers.
Additional text
“Chapelle’s work is important beyond its data and its argument that textbooks ought to include more political context in their presentation of Québécois culture and politics. Her book provides an exemplary methodology with five case studies (corresponding to five time periods) that could be used in undergraduate and graduate courses on qualitative research. … The book is also pleasant to read.” (Alexandre Couture Gagnon, American Review of Canadian Studies, Vol. 47 (3), 2017)
Report
"Chapelle's work is important beyond its data and its argument that textbooks ought to include more political context in their presentation of Québécois culture and politics. Her book provides an exemplary methodology with five case studies (corresponding to five time periods) that could be used in undergraduate and graduate courses on qualitative research. ... The book is also pleasant to read." (Alexandre Couture Gagnon, American Review of Canadian Studies, Vol. 47 (3), 2017)
