Teaching French as a foreign language : The case of Algeria

These days, debates about the role of schools and language teaching and learning are subjects that intrigue teachers, book designers and, in particular, parents. In language teaching in general, and French as a foreign language in particular, innovations and methodologies are constantly invading the teaching field. For the most part, they are the product of demands external to the language. This has been the case since the emergence of the audio-oral method (in the USA in the 1940s) up to the present day, with the skills-based approach. Thus, for more than half a century, innovation has been the priority in language teaching. It is important to recognise that considerable efforts have been made in pedagogical discourse and that the aim of these didactic and methodological trends is to improve the quality of teaching.