Socio-economic and scientific challenges of a qualitative design of distance learning: contextualization and interculturation

Marc Debono (1) , Isabelle Pierozak (1) , Corinne Raynal-Astier (1)

1 PREFICS EA 7469 - Pôle de Recherche Francophonies, Interculturel, Communication, Sociolinguistique

Promoted in Europe by the Bologna Process, distance education has increased in recent years. This boom began a major transformation of universities characterized, among others, by a multiplication of exchanges between individuals from different personal, educational and professional backgrounds. However, in this new teaching context, international students and teachers are sometimes destabilized: students in the face of new methods of university work and program content, teachers because they are confronted with diverse student profiles, expectations and needs. The questions raised by the relationship between distance learning and /learners in a FLE/S (French as a Foreign/Second language) perspective are numerous. In the context of this article, we will first consider ODL (Open and Distance Learning) "contextualization"2, which will be discussed in connection with the problems a misguided sense of interculturality in the field of ODL poses. Finally, we will identify what we believe to be fundamentally at the root of these problems: an epistemological continuity in research, which is based on the paradigm of "trace", which can only lead to an essentialized congealing of meaning ... or a solid/culturalist approach of the intercultural (Dervin, 2009a).

Mots clés: ODL; Qualitative research; Contextualization; Intercultural; Phenomenological- hermeneutic approach; Teaching of language-culture

Domaines: Linguistique; Education; Histoire, Philosophie et Sociologie des sciences

Marc Debono, Isabelle Pierozak, Corinne Raynal-Astier. Socio-economic and scientific challenges of a qualitative design of distance learning: contextualization and interculturation. Heidi Layne, Virginie Trémion, Fred Dervin. Making the Most of Intercultural Education, Cambridge Scholar Publishing, pp.105-122, 2015, 978-1-4438-7257-7. ⟨hal-01378732⟩