Call for papers

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Papers should correspond to the following themes:

1. The role of the pupil and the learning process

Given the complexity of the linguistic system that undergirds French orthography, students require much time and effort to learn it, and their mastery of the material is often imperfect. For the last thirty years, research on the lexical level by linguists, psycholinguists, cognitive psychologists, and cognitive scientists has sought to understand the structures and workings of mental lexicons and their constitutive lexical units (Fayol & Jaffré, 2008). Though the alphabetic principle rests on a system of correspondences between phonemes and graphemes, it remains necessary to memorise certain forms, especially in the case of languages with deep orthographies, such as French. These forms belong to the written language, and teaching them to pupils, implicitly or explicitly, starting in first and second grade – at the same time as they are learning the alphabetic principle – is a priority for teachers and pedagogues. It is assumed that the pupil will gradually incorporate a multi-representational system composed of phonemic, graphemic, graphotactical, orthosyllabic, and morphological parts.

On the level of grammar and morphosyntax, research is less abundant and, to a certain extent, less advanced than in the lexical domain. The central questions, which have come down from research on oral production, involve, on the one hand, the emergence and acquisition of agreement structures (number, gender) within the sentence and its syntagma, and, on the other, the implementation and development of ways of supervising the agreement process so that mistakes do not occur (Fayol, Totereau & Barrouillet, 2006 ; Totereau, Fayol & Barrouillet, 1998). This includes the learning of French /–ER/ verb endings in the infinitive, the past participle, and the imperfect tense (Brissaud & Chevrot, 2011; Brissaud, Fisher & Negro, 2012).

The papers on this theme will thus provide an opportunity to take stock of recent research dedicated to the learning of orthography, to the genesis and development of pupils’ orthographic skills and notions of spelling, to performance, to the difficulties that pupils face at different points in their scholastic careers and in different social environments, and to the digital tools used to study how pupils learn to spell.

Keywords: Procedures, Acquisition, Metacognition and orthographic control, Orthography and bilingualism, Learning orthography for allophones, Explicit and implicit orthographic learning, Updates to cognitive models of orthography, Orthographic processes and relations with other components of written production, Interindividual differences in orthographic processes, Difficulties and disorders in orthographic production.

2. The impact of tools and approaches

Furthermore, the pedagogy of orthography seeks to increase its efficacy in order to foster pupils’ ability to manage orthography in their writing. If one wishes to enlighten educators and to enable them to develop skills for teaching orthography, it is necessary to describe current practices of orthographic instruction (i.e. situations in which learners first encounter a system, begin to encode autonomously, write under dictation, produce writing, or revise texts, as well as the linguistic interactions that accompany/construct these situations), to define their logic, and to measure their short-term and long-term effects on learning.

To date, few studies on the impact of educational practices in this sphere are available. Of the 53 studies listed in Graham and Santangelo’s (2014) meta-analysis, only two had to do with French, and these dealt with learning in kindergarten.

However, several innovations, such as the practice of “innovative” dictations (“negotiated” dictations, “zero-mistake” dictations, dictated sentences of the day, given sentences of the day, etc.) rest on the hypothesis that interactions between pupils, especially with reference to their own orthographic performance and notions of spelling, represent an efficient means of altering conceptions of orthography (Ulma, 2016). Approaches that make use of digital resources (specific software, spellcheckers, “predictive” text, communication between classes, social networks) are also evolving.

We welcome papers that offer analyses of such approaches and the interactions that they bring about in class, with special heed to pupils’ progress in orthographic skills, particularly with reference to pupils who experience greater difficulties or who come from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Keywords: Educational tools, Innovations, Educational discourse, Interactions, Language for learning, Grammatical reasoning, Social and educational inequalities, Effects of digital approaches, Digital tools for cognitive aid in handling orthography.

3. Teachers’ skills, ideas, and training

The relationship that teachers develop with language and with orthography in particular in the course of their individual experience, as well as the priorities that they set for themselves and the guiding principles that govern their teaching, all help create the classroom culture that they create for their pupils (Haramein, Hutmacher & Perrenoud, 1979). For this theme, we will welcome up-to-date papers on the latest ways for teachers to conceptualize orthography and its teaching, as well as on the relationship between these notions, broader visions of language and orthographic social norms (Sautot, 2002-2003), pedagogical principles that guide teachers’ activities while allowing them to make choices and manage dilemmas (Wanlin & Crahay, 2012), and, finally, their knowledge of pedagogy.

Studies of teacher education and professional development are also desirable, especially regarding the new forms that pedagogical training is taking on today. In recent years, research on linked networks of teachers (Savoie-Zajc, 2010; Vangrieken, Meredith, Packer & Kyndt, 2017) has leaned on the theories of Wenger (1998) and highlighted the social dimension of learning as well as the importance of actors’ involvement in “communities of practice”. Wenger considers that participation in a “community of practice” changes conceptual schemes, potentially reinforcing professional identities and enriching pedagogical praxis. What is the current situation in the theory and practice of teaching orthography? And how are these remote collaborative methods, which are often the result of initiatives from educators, applied in institutional educational programs and by teams working in institutions and schools?

Keywords: Relations with language, Relations with orthography, Representation, Professional development, Community of practice.

4. Orthography and society

The social and cultural dimension of orthography is not simply limited to what it contributes to written communication. For parents but also for society in general, orthography has symbolic and even emotional value. Mastery of orthography is often associated with mastery of the written language as such, and thus of critical thinking; non-mastery of orthography tends to be a stigmatising factor. At the same time, orthography evolves and varies in its rules and in its usage.

How do instructors handle orthographic reforms, which have become part of official instructions? In a more general sense, how do they interpret the recommendations of official texts concerning the teaching of orthography? Are they sensitive to variation, or do they reflect a hyper-normative view of orthography? What sort of relationship with the norm and with orthographic variation do they build in their class? Does the digital – i.e. digital discourse (Paveau, 2012), computer- or smartphone-mediated communication (Liénard, 2012), educational tools with a digital component, tablets, digital whiteboards – stimulate the development or emergence of competing norms? We will privilege papers that demonstrate how sociolinguistic thinking, especially as concerns variation, can facilitate the teaching of orthography. Special appreciation will be granted to studies of orthographic notions and norms, their evolutions and variations, with the potential to shed light on the current situation in schools and on the teaching of orthography, or to deliver an analysis of the situation in schools. We will also consider studies that privilege an historical perspective on the impact of, e.g., mass schooling, as well as the ever-increasing contemporary societal demand with respect to orthographic mastery, especially in the private sector.

Keywords: Norms, Variation, Computer-mediated communication, Digital discourse, Linguistic practices.

CONFERENCE PAPER FORMAT

The papers, 20 minutes long and followed by 10 minutes of discussion with workshop participants, will be grouped into thematic workshops.

Papers should be submitted to the conference website in the following format, including:

• A title.

• A paper abstract clearly featuring a problematic, a corpus, select methodological elements, and one or two topics of discussion (max. 600 characters including spaces).

• A bibliography following the recommended APA style with a maximum of 5 references (in order to ensure anonymity during the selection process, author references are not allowed).

ONLINE SUBMISSIONS

Once a paper proposal is accepted, the author will be asked to provide an extended abstract (between 6000 et 8000 characters, including spaces but not bibliography), which will be made available online before the conference.