Published Report Details
Mandatory Fields
Duncan, A., Conacher, J.E., Low, L. and C. Penman
2002
July
The Stirling-Besançon Telephone Partnership, 2000-2002: A SCOTLANG Project.
Stirling
Scottish CILT
Published
0
Optional Fields
                          

The Stirling-Besançon Telephone Partnership Project was a qualitative study of the linguistic and socio-cultural experience of university foreign language students linked by telephone with native speakers of the language and culture they were studying. Native speakers of English studying French at Stirling University engaged in regular bilingual telephone calls with students of the Université de Franche-Comté at Besançon. This qualitative study aimed to show the linguistic and socio-cultural impact of that experience on four successive sample cohorts of learners of French (Autumn 2000-Spring 2002). The Stirling students were selected from those who had little experience of France but were about to spend a semester or a year there; the Besançon students were training to be teachers of French as a foreign language.

           The telephone interactions consisted of eight 20 minute sessions, 10 minutes in French, followed by 10 in English. The interactions were scaffolded by questions about French and British life and culture relating to the curriculum of the Stirling students. The students were also linked by e-mail, which they used to set up times for their telephone interactions and which they were otherwise free to exploit as they liked.

Grant Details
Scottish Executive/Universities of Stirling & Besançon