Creating and Developing a Student Worksheet for In-Tandem Activity

Abstract

Tandem activities entail communication between two partners of different cultures and mother tongues in order to use and improve their linguistic knowledge, to exchange information and to facilitate socio-cultural integration. In this respect, a set of educational materials has been created by the team of the «Tandem, bilinguisme et construction des savoirs disciplinaires: une approche du FLE/FOS en contact avec les langues de l’ECO » project. Nevertheless, all teaching material goes through successive stages, various approaches and can be improved. This study suggests an analysis of a student worksheet, Education, whose main objective is to know the educational system of the two cultures. This research mirrors two versions of the same worksheet (conventionally marked V1 and V2) in order to present the manner in which this teaching material developed. We used a comparative approach. Our points of interest were: the linguistic level of the target group, general/specific objectives, the set place and time, and the structure of the activities. The study’s conclusions entailed two aspects: methodological and cultural. Thus, as far as the material’s future users, we believe that it is preferable that all the students be at the threshold level of the foreign language. The activities suggested by the worksheet must make use of the participant’s linguistic resources in an active process. To know the tandem partner’s educational system, in order to be integrated in it, it is necessary for the general objectives to be aimed at identifying cultural similarities and differences.