7.4 Recommendations for Educational Practice

In an earlier section of this study, a rationale was presented for the need to investigate teachers’ beliefs about teaching and learning FSFL in OLEs. An important part of this rationale was to be able to provide teachers with professional development sessions that build on their existing beliefs. A further rationale was to provide a starting point from which teachers could be assisted in evolving their beliefs. The following recommendations are intended to assist in the realization of these goals.

1. The findings of this study indicate that teachers’ beliefs about teaching and learning FSFL in OLEs are heterogeneous and thus reflect a wide range in terms of the evolution of approaches and technology use. Professional development sessions will therefore be useful in order to provide all teachers with opportunities to evolve their beliefs so that they might be more compatible with teaching and learning in OLEs.
2. The findings of this study suggest that teachers’ fundamental beliefs about knowledge and about learning may play a pivotal role in their conception of OLEs and in the uses which they make of these environments. Teachers may need to be provided opportunities for exposure to beliefs that provide alternatives to knowledge transmission and to teacher-centered pedagogies.
3. Professional development sessions can address the issue of students’ use of their native language while learning French in OLEs.
4. Technical training can be integrated with professional development opportunities to develop an understanding of the nature of OLEs and the types of learning and teaching styles that they best support.
5. Conflict in teachers’ beliefs may be reconciled through opportunities for reflection on and examination and discussion of their beliefs.
6. Inconsistencies between an individual’s beliefs and those of colleagues or of students may be resolved or reconciled through a process of social negotiation whereby explicit public articulation, discussion and examination assist in the process of consensus building and of reconciliation.
7. Public negotiation of beliefs can be accomplished through teachers’ participation in the development of school-based as well as district-wide policies, in school-improvement initiatives, and in the formulation of policies and decisions that affect the larger school community.