AQPC

An interview with Mrs Suzanne Richard, President of the AQPF (Association québécoise des professeurs de français), educational advisor at the secondary level and lecturer in the Faculté des lettres et des sciences humaines at the Université de Sherbooke, conducted by Julie Roberge.

Within the framework of the cross-curricular College Students in 2010 file and along the same lines as the article by Sophie Lemay and Isabelle Tremblay on "Pedagogical Reform at secondary level: What's new in French?", this interview deals specifically with teaching literature in secondary in the context of the pedagogical renewal. Mrs Richard outlines the main similarities and differences between the teaching of literature in the old and the new programs and she identifies the impact this will have on students attending college in the fall of 2010. In doing so, she brings to light the fact that students' performance in college is evaluated on the basis of language even though this is not actually taught, in the hope of fostering a spirit of continuity and complementarity between the teaching of literature and language at both levels. In her opinion, as a result of the reform, college teachers will notice primarily a change in the way that students learn: they will be more accustomed to cooperating, discussing and raising questions about their way of doing things, thus encouraging French-language college teachers to use the lecture format less and less frequently. From this perspective, she restates the objective of all French teachers: to have students appropriate the works and be able to discuss them.