A study of allophone students at school in majority (France, Montpellier) and minority (Canada, Ontario) contexts

Our research focuses on two contexts of allophone students in school: France (Montpellier) and Canada (Ontario). The objective of this paper, which is a part of a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) research project entitled Towards a renewed intercultural didactic of French as a second language and a better academic achievement of Allophone students: a France-Canada inter-site comparison, is to focus on the discourses and practices of teachers in multilingual and multicultural settings. Our conceptual framework concentrates on the need to renew teaching practices with a focus on multiliteracies, while our methodology includes a questionnaire for teachers and classroom observations to determine the degree of alignment between what teachers say and what they do in their classroom with respect to multilingualism. Our conclusions show a significant gap between representations and practices, with few differences between the French and Franco-Ontarian contexts; in both environments, we notice a lack of information regarding the possibility of using languages and cultures as resources in the classroom. This conclusion encourages us to continue the study utilizing children’s literature related to diversity in a program that targets the professional development of teachers.