Learning the Genre “Summary” by Undergraduate French Language Students: A Didactic Device at the Service of Academic Literacy

Abstract

In this article, we aim to present the work with the written production in French during a semester of the undergraduate course in French as Foreign Language, seeking to develop the language capacities of students, in LE. More specifically, we will present the work done with students on language operations related to the process of summarizing the ideas of a text (MACHADO, 2010) and the avoidance of repetition, but through a socio-discursive and interactionist perspective, showing the device that we created, the students’ productions and discussing the role of the Academic Literacy Laboratory (LLAC) in developing students’ language capacities. Our study takes as a theoretical and methodological basis Socio-discursive Interactionism (BRONCKART, 1999) and its consequences for the Didactics of Languages, through the concepts of: didactic model (DE PIETRO; SCHNEUWLY, 2003), didactic sequence (DOLZ; NOVERRAZ; SCHNEUWLY, 2004), language capacities (DOLZ; PASQUIER; BRONCKART, 1993). The results pointed out that the students developed the discursive and linguistic-discursive capacities, especially those related to the act of summarize, using nouns and pronouns to avoid repetition. It also shows that the device is relevant to the learning of the genre summary and also of the content of the text that was summarized, what illustrates the perspective of “writing to learn” (GERE, 2019) and the epistemic function of writing.

Keywords

• writing production
• movie review
• summary
• summarization