Leerlingkenmerken En Moderne-Vreemde-Talen-Onderwijs In Onderzoek En Opleiding

One of the objectives of teacher-training is that the student should be able to assess the results of educational research in terms of its relevance to classroom practice. In addition, he or she should be able to participate in research and material- or curriculum-development. In this paper we want to emphasize these two objectives, using as an example our research project An Explorative Investigation of Learner Characteristics Relevant to Material Development (for French). Our presentation includes A. Research questions: - Is it possible to get more insight into learner-characteristics which may be relevant to modern language teaching? - Does this insight result in criteria for developing communicative teaching materials (for French) which cater more for individual differences (cognitive as well as affective) between learners? Research methods: Some pupils of a first year mixed-ability group, selected by the Group Embedded Figures Test for Field- (in)dependency, carried out a set of language tasks. They were invited to "think aloud" while performing these tasks. The protocols obtained were analysed and a tentative identification, in terms of learner characteristics, was made of the typical behaviour of f.d. and f.i. pupils. Conclusions: Field(in)dependency seems to be a relevant learner characteristic for foreign language learning in schools. Some recommendations are made, particularly in the domain of orientation-activities. B. A discussion of the students' participation in this project. C. A description of the way in which this (and other) research project(s) have been integrated into our teacher-training courses.