Literary reading and French language teaching: high school students’ formation at cap-UFRJ

Abstract

The third year of high school is considered a challenging moment for teachers and students, since it is the final year of a school cycle for students. Teachers’ difficulties are increased by their responsibility to mediate teachings, fears, uncertainties, frustrations and overcomings. In the case of French as a school subject, these difficulties were intensified when most Brazilian university entrance tests no longer offered French as a foreign language option, resulting in lack of interest in French classes. The obstacles naturally imposed by the third year of high school and those directly related to French led the French Department of Colégio de Aplicação da Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, in 2017, to propose three thematic workshops (music, literature and cinema) as a strategy to (re)motivate students. This paper presents this experience, carried out between June and December 2017 with the group from the literature workshop, whose planning and performance were designed to work on literary text reading and poem writing from the readings and classroom discussions. The paper also presents a summary of the history of the use of literary texts to teach French as well as a defense of the use of literature in language lessons. Finally, some of the students’ activities and productions, including their assessments, will be presented.