Description du sujet de thèse

Designing, implementing and evaluating the effects of an online corpus of school texts for reading comprehension and sociolinguistic integration of FFL middle school pupils.
Directors : Virginie André (ATILF, Université de Lorraine et CNRS) et Maud Ciekanski (ATILF, Université de Lorraine et CNRS)

The thesis falls within the field of language education and corpus didactics. It concerns more specifically the use of written and digital corpora in teaching-learning contexts. It focuses on FFL learners entering literacy, coping with its digital and media dimensions, and on multimodal mediations facilitating access to the written comprehension of FFL learners. In an approach combining social and language practices, the aim of the thesis will be to contribute to the enrichment of AlloText, a multi-level multimodal online system, by meeting the diversity of written French language needs encountered by teachers and pupils in UPE2A (pedagogical unit for newly arrived FFL pupils) structures or in ordinary classes. Initially, the doctoral student will conduct an extensive field study by analyzing the practices and needs of FFL learners in the Nancy-Metz academy in terms of academic literacy. S/he will compile a study corpus from which a sample of writings will be selected and annotated according to the specific needs of FFL learners and the objectives set by teachers and academic programs. The annotation will form part of the multifaceted and multimodal learning support of the corpus and will be carried out in collaboration with a team of teachers in UPE2A structures and engineering support. In a second phase, the candidate will be asked to experiment with and evaluate the effects of the enriched system on the reading comprehension skills of FFL learners. This will allow the system to be adjusted in terms of both functionality and didactic proposals.

Contexte de travail

The new recruit will join the ATILF laboratory, an applied linguistics research unit, and in particular the Language, Work and Training (LTF) research group within the Language Education and Sociolinguistics axis. This research group develops researches on language insecurities and language training for native and non-native French speakers.
The thesis is part of the AlloText project, led by the ATILF laboratory (CNRS/Université de Lorraine) and is financed by the ASTERIE program (School Ambition on all Educational Territories through an Innovative and Committed Network) supported by the Nancy-Metz education authority. The AlloText project aims to develop a multimodal digital device dedicated to FFL middle school pupils, offering a database of the various written school genres they encounter: administrative and teaching communications (internal regulations, newsletters, school circulars, etc.), pedagogical and disciplinary texts (school newspapers, textbooks, disciplinary and literary texts, etc.), everyday writings within the school (posters, information boards, messages on school websites, canteen menus, timetables, etc.). The system integrates a variety of multimodal didactic mediations to support learners' reading comprehension and literacy development, taking into account the heterogeneity of their language level(s), their educational background in their previous countries and their relationship with the written world.
Conceived and developed by the ATILF laboratory, in partnership with the Nancy-Metz Education Authority, this tool is designed to promote the academic and social integration of learners, and to offer specific supports for the brevet des collèges exams. Difficulties in reading and, more generally, in written comprehension are a major factor in school drop-out. The program aims to reduce educational inequalities by encouraging the inclusion of FFL learners in ordinary French classes, thanks to specific support in reading comprehension. It also supports their institutional integration, by helping them to appropriate school documents, whether administrative, pedagogical or related to life at school.

Contraintes et risques

Applications: required information and procedures

Candidates should have the following skills and profiles:
- Master's degree in French as a foreign language / language didactics
- knowledge of linguistics (discourse analysis, literacy, sociolinguistics)
- knowledge of corpus processing and annotation

- des connaissances en traitement et annotation de corpus

Informations complémentaires

Applications must include a detailed CV, a cover letter and master's degree grades. They must be submitted via the application section of the CNRS Employment Portal: https://emploi.cnrs.fr/. The application period will be open from June 2, 2025, until June 23, 2025.