Chapter published in:
Usage-inspired L2 Instruction: Researched pedagogy
Edited by Andrea E. Tyler, Lourdes Ortega, Mariko Uno and Hae In Park
[Language Learning & Language Teaching 49] 2018
► pp. 95–115

Chapter 5
Conceptual frameworks and L2 pedagogy

The case of French prepositions

| University of Massachusetts, Boston
| The Pennsylvania State University

Prepositions have historically posed challenges to second language (L2) learners, due largely to the fact that prepositions in the first language (L1) typically do not overlap in meaning, function, or use with L2 prepositions. Three prepositions in French, à, dans, and en, reflect this very issue. This chapter presents results from three instructional workshops involving students and teachers of French at a large public university in the northeastern U.S. We introduced our conceptualization-based framework for the target prepositions, based on discourse analysis of a corpus and designed to provide L2 learners and teachers with a unified and systematic conceptual mapping of the trajector and landmark relationships for each preposition, together with other symbols that graphically illustrate the meanings for each form. The combined Cognitive Linguistic (CL) (Langacker, 2008a, 2008b; Taylor, 2002; Tyler, 2012b) and Sociocultural Theoretical (SCT) (Vygotsky, 2012) Concept-Based Instructional (CBI) (see Haenen, 2001) approach helped early intermediate French L2 learners/teachers better understand these three French prepositions and be able to use them appropriately.

Article outline
  • Introduction
  • The knottiness of à, dans, and en from an L1 “equivalency” perspective
  • Challenges from the trenches
  • Cognitive linguistics and discourse analysis
  • Sociocultural theory and cognitive linguistics
  • Our pedagogy
    • Student workshops
  • Instructor workshops
  • Results
    • À
    • Dans
    • En
    • Preposition use, comparing pre-test to post-test
    • Instructor feedback
  • Discussion and implications
  • References
Published online: 13 February 2018
https://doi.org/10.1075/lllt.49.05bue
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