Contribution
Description: The present paper is related to a research for a PH.D in educational sciences. The aim of this research is to study the development of the first forms of "public speech" (Schneuwly, 2003) at the french maternal school throughout processes of teaching-learning in their links with the spatial organization of activities of that school. Population concerned is between two and six year-old. The maternal school is divided in four sections : 1st section (from two to three year-old), 2nd section (from three to four year-old), 3rd section (from four to five year-old) and 4th section (from five to six year-old).
The French preschool institution highlights its original identity. According to the French National Minsitry (2002), it is "a school of full exercise" (p. 56). Official texts, while mentioning its propaedeutic mission, underline its specificities and distinguish it from the elementary school which concerns pupils between six and eleven year-old.
Being based on the way in which this first school was historically structured, research tries to locate some of its zones of tension, in order to better understand the activities which appear in the concrete situations in classroom. In that purpose, the Vygotskian socio-historical framework allows to question the aspects of continuity and rupture in early schooling, between everyday practives vs school practices. Vygotski (1935/1995) considers that "to start from this age, a program of teaching becomes possible". Vygotski underlines : "it is not yet a school curriculum. It must be still to a certain extent the program of the child himself "(p. 36). Our approach of the maternal school thus takes into account the children development arriving and attending school ; it is on this condition that it is possible to finely characterize the specific preschool methods in the implementation of the linguistic activity of its young pupils.
The research is in an exploratory phase. Consequently, in a first time, the paper submitted will be more dedicated to the presentation of the theoretical framework and of the principal hypothesis of work as well as of the original methodology which has been designed to explore the 'situated' processes of learning and development. We will illustrate our question with the analysis coming of some data collected in 3rd and 4th section (from four to six years old).
In a second time, we will detail our main working hypothesis : we consider that teaching-learning processes and pupils speech depend on the spatial organization of space. Through this hypothesis, the geographical structuring constrained differentially the preschool forms of linguistic activity, i.e. influences the objects together with the actions which are carried on.
In a third time, we will treat of the methodology carried out and will detail the reasons of the importance dedicated to the material components of the maternal school classrooms. We will show the constant interest taken to the structuring of space, during the historical evolution of the preschool institution.This school is now characterized through its original organization of space, divided into several "corners" (French National Education Ministry, 2002, p. 99).
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