A Deep Approach to Foreign Language Teaching: Lecture by Dr. Francois Tochon
A Deep Approach to Foreign Language Teaching
Dr. Francois Victor Tochon, Professor of Curriculum and Instruction, University of Wisconsin-Madison
WEDNESDAY MAY 2nd 1:00-3:00 pm CAS 132
SPONSORED BY MLCL and the Institute for the Study of Muslim Societies and Civilizations
Organizer: Dr. Roberta Micallef
Foreign Language Education is handicapped by paradoxes that prevent it from furthering its mission. Methods are often taught without epistemology, students tend to communicate without contents. Teaching of cultures is often sanitized and stereotyped. Teachers professionalize students who rarely understand their own cultural identity, potential foreignness and otherness. The way to deal with these contradictions is to articulate new priorities and reconceptualize the field as the inescapable branch of learning for world peace and social justice. Deep project-based learning places the emphasis on the quality and meaningfulness of content development within the accomplishment of coordinated tasks within holistic projects. Professor Tochon offers a new perspective on language instruction practice, which targets transdisciplinary aims. The deep learning process gives rise to a variety of outcomes that cannot always be fully anticipated. Therefore, deep evaluation is open and focuses on creative work. Deep content-based learning places the emphasis on the quality of the acquisition process and proficiency development within the accomplishment of projects.
Dr. Francois Victor Tochon is a Professor in the Department of Curriculum & Instruction at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he headed World Language Education for 6 years. He has a Ph.D. in Curriculum & Instruction (Université Laval) and a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology (Ottawa University), and received the equivalent of Honorary Doctorates from two universities in Argentina and Peru. Tochon worked on intercultural issues related to bilingualism in various countries and international language policies, looking for new ways to organize language teaching and learning. In 2009-2011, Tochon received an award from the U.S. Department of Education to create, research and evaluate a “deep approach” to foreign language curricula that would respect a pluralistic and federative view of language policies. It allowed him to format an interface between language policies and classroom curricula and practices. Tochon has more than 25 books to his credit.