Resumen de A beginner French learner corpus
This paper introduces the beginner French learner corpus built at the Centre for Language Learning at the University of the West Indies in Trinidad and Tobago. The primary objective of this project is to improve the way French is taught in this particular Caribbean context. It is original in the sense that it targets learners with a low or intermediate proficiency in French. Since it was collected during a period of two and a half years, the corpus allows for both longitudinal and same-level studies. The interlanguage associated with this specific population of students shows the influence played by the L1 (English) that is sometimes reinforced by that of another prevalent L2 (Spanish). The learners' productions also point to the strong impact that the textbooks and pedagogical approach to language teaching have on the students' written production. This research project calls for adapting the teachers' pedagogy and textbooks in order to help these beginner learners write more accurately and originally right from the beginning of instruction.
