The relationship between high school students learning of French and teachers' cultural methods of instruction.

摘要

The purpose of this study was to determine what methods teachers were using to teach French culture: information, process, or a combination of information and process. The student responses that focused on their teachers' use of either information methods or process methods indicated that teachers were using a combination of both types of teaching methods. As a result, no clear delineation of the type of teaching method could be determined.; A causal-comparative research design was used in this study. Participants were students enrolled in French classes in their respective high schools. French language courses are electives that are not required for graduation, but are helpful in preparing for postsecondary education. A total of 112 students participated in the study. The majority of participants were female, with most students in the tenth grade, although all grade levels were represented in the study. The majority of students were in their first year of French classes, with more than half of these students planning to continue their French classes in the next school year. The largest group of students self-reported their grades as mostly As and some Bs. All but five of the students were planning to continue their education in college, but most of these students did not plan to continue their education in the French language in college. The majority of students reported that English was their native language.; The five research questions and associated hypotheses required the delineation of type of teaching method as the independent variable. Because the methods of teaching French culture (information method, process method, or combined method) could not be determined from the responses, the students were randomly assigned to one of three groups (information method, process method, combination method) using SPSS. The testing of the hypotheses provided no statistically significant differences.; The conclusion provided from these findings was that teachers are using a combination of methods and techniques to teach French to students. Recommendations for further research included additional research using students from a single high school.