Pedagogy in a minority language environment: relationship to languages

Our results indicate four main relationships to languages: to English, to Chiac, to the English-French duality and to French. Students have ambivalent relationships with these languages, which are both adored and criticized.

Positive relationships towards these languages are thought to help them learn French, build confidence in the classroom (Cormier, 2005) and develop feelings of competence in French (Landry, Allard and Deveau, 2011). The analysis also identifies seven pedagogical practices that are both praised and criticized.

The students were satisfied with these practices and established positive relationships with them, which provided a foundation and intrinsic motivation (Deci & Ryan, 2002) for them to acquire good French skills and to counter their feelings of linguistic insecurity towards this language.