Content area
This doctoral thesis focuses on the development of the Teaching of the French Language as a Foreign Language in Spain. The starting point of the study will be the Civil War period reaching its final point with the publication of the General Law of Education in 1970. This law is considered the last one of those belonging to the educational laws under the government of Francisco Franco, the signs of modernity relied under this law that meant the democratic transition.
The many methodological changes produced during this period (1936–70) are studied in the investigation. The different factors that influenced the process of change are analysed: sociological, educational, and political contexts are revised (from the autarchic post war to the “development” of the 60s); the international situation of the teaching of languages which will experiment a very prosperous time at the end of the period; the training—initial and permanent—and the professional situation of the teachers; the educational legislation and the official methodological orientations; the publications related to the subject matter—at both national and international level, the international publications that arrive through the frontiers and the national publications and the textbooks published during these years, fundamentally those of national production that received the approval of the Ministry and also those that even if they did not have the same characteristics as the others, had an important role in the methodological development.
Based on the analysis and junction of the collected data the reached conclusion will support that, together with the remaining of traditional teaching practices, since 1953—being influenced by great international trends—there is a very important turn that will mean the development of the so called “active methods”. Since 1963—being immersed in a very radical and very proselytic international movement—with a strong French influence, the incorporation of audiovisual methods into Spain took place.
The methodological trends that appear during this period of time set the precedents for the most important and the most investigated reformations of the language teaching that were inserted by the General Law of Education in 1970.