Available via license: CC BY 4.0
Content may be subject to copyright.
Apples – Journal of Applied Language Studies
Vol. 18, 2, 2024, 93–112
________
Corresponding author’s email: bedard.vincent.3@courrier.uqam.ca
eISSN: 1457-9863
Publisher: University of Jyväskylä, Language Campus
© 2024: The authors
https://apples.journal.
https://doi.org/10.47862/apples.130459
Teaching materials for use in French classes
for immigrants enrolled in Literacy Education
and Second Language Learning for Adults
in Quebec: overview and issues
Vincent Bédard, Université du Québec à Montréal
Véronique Fortier, Université du Québec à Montréal
Valérie Amireault, Université du Québec à Montréal
Le personnel enseignant travaillant avec les personnes adultes immigrantes en
apprentissage de la langue et de la littératie (PAIALeL) est confronté à plusieurs
dés concernant la disponibilité et l’utilisation de matériels didactiques. Pour
dresser le portrait du matériel utilisé dans les classes de français pour PAIALeL au
Québec (Canada) et mieux comprendre les différents enjeux liés à l’utilisation de ce
matériel, nous avons interrogé des enseignant·e·s en utilisant un questionnaire en
ligne (n=53) et des entrevues individuelles (n=7). Nos données, analysées à l’aide de
la théorie de l’activité (TA), révèlent un manque de matériel adéquat ainsi que des
enjeux liés à l’adaptation et à la création de matériel ainsi qu’à l’hétérogénéité des
prols des PAIALeL. Des implications pédagogiques sont aussi présentées.
Mots-clés: matériel didactique, développement du français langue cible,
développement de la littératie, personnes immigrantes adultes
Teachers working in the eld of literacy education and second language learning
for adults (LESLLA) face several challenges related to the availability and use of
appropriate teaching materials. To provide an overview of the materials used in
Quebec’s French L2 classes and to better understand the challenges related to these
materials, we collected data from teachers both through an online questionnaire
(n=53) and individual interviews (n=7). Analysed through the lens of Activity
Theory (AT), our data highlight a lack of suitable materials and issues related to the
heterogeneity of students’ background. Pedagogical implications are also presented.
Keywords: teaching material, French as a second language education,
literacy education, adult immigrants
94 Teaching materials for use in French classes for immigrants...
1 Introduction
Quebec, Canada’s only French-speaking province, takes in thousands of immigrants
each year from various countries (Ministère de l’Immigration, de la Francisation et de
l’Immigration [MIFI], 2022). Of these, a high proportion have no command of French;
for instance, between 2016 and 2020, 40.2% of all landed immigrants in Quebec stated
that they knew no French (ibid.). While many people immigrating to Quebec are in the
economic immigrant category and have had academic or vocational training before their
arrival, many others—some 11.8% between 2016–2020—reported that they had attended
school for 11 years or less, and half of them had completed between 0 and 6 years of
schooling (ibid). Although some of these individuals might have developed literacy skills
either during their brief school attendance or outside of school, it is possible that some
others only have partial knowledge, if any, of any written language (Council of Europe,
2022). Hence, the challenge faced by these newcomers is twofold: to learn the language
of the majority, French, and to achieve literacy, that is, to acquire sufcient reading and
writing skills to maximize their potential and participate fully in their community and
life in society (Ahmed, 2011).
Quebec offers various French courses for persons with little formal schooling in their
countries of origin. Those courses are offered by two different ministries (Immigration
and Education), but, to date, in neither case is the teaching based on a standard (a core
program or frame of reference) or on shared teaching materials, which are unavailable.
Since Quebec’s variety of French differs from other varieties, especially in its oral form
(Chalier, 2018), the local government wishes to develop its own curriculum and materi-
als so that learners will become familiar with the local variety. However, due to the cur-
rent lack of guidance, the province has great difculty harmonizing the courses it offers;
moreover, it is impossible to monitor the teaching approaches or the teaching materials
used in school settings (Auditor General of Quebec, 2017), even though such material is
essential to target language (L2) classes (Chartier & Renard, 2000). Indeed, instructional
material affords important insights into what is done in the classroom, as it lays out the
greater part of the knowledge to be taught and learned as well as L2 values and ideolo-
gies (Matsuda, 2012).
The purpose of the present study, accordingly, has been to explore the reality of litera-
cy education and second language learning for adults (LESLLA) classes—in terms of the
use of teaching materials—from the standpoint of the people who deal with that reality
on a day-to-day basis: teachers. To achieve this aim we have employed Activity Theory
(AT) to make sense of the human practices and challenges underlying the use of teaching
materials in LESLLA classes. By teaching materials we mean all those tools that a teach-
er uses in his or her practice (Piccardo & Yaiche, 2005), regardless of whether they were
originally designed for learning (e.g., textbooks, audio and video recordings, photocop-
ied handouts, source and reference documents, and games).
2 Earlier research
In order to explore the use of teaching materials in L2 classes for LESLLA learners, we
rst need to gain a better understanding of the nature of these learners. Thus, in what
follows, we shall provide insights into the characteristics of this learner population, then
review studies that have explored the uses of teaching materials in the LESLLA context.
2.1 What characterizes LESLLA learners?
It is not easy to characterize immigrant LESLLA learners, as they do not form a
homogeneous group of learners (Bigelow & Vinogradov, 2011): some may have attended
school for a few years but stopped for any of a number of reasons (war, migration, work,
Bédard, Fortier & Amireault 95
etc.); others have never had the opportunity to go to school, although living in a literate
environment; a third group may have lived in remote areas where written language was
virtually absent (Council of Europe, 2022). For the third group, acquisition of literacy
means not only familiarizing themselves with written words, but also changing the way
they deal with language in society (Bautier, 2009). Those learners, when entering into a
Western educational system to learn the language of the host community, may struggle
to nd their bearings because of the cultural dissonance they experience between the
ways they used to learn skills and languages before immigrating (i.e., namely through
experiential learning) and what Western school culture expects from them (i.e., abstract
thinking, performance) (DeCapua & Marshall, 2011).
In the rst place, because much of the material is in print form —both text and photos,
pictures or pictograms (Salvaggio, 2018)— and highly culturally loaded, LESLLA learn-
ers may experience difculties interpreting multimodal texts (Altherr Flores, 2017). For
example, Altherr Flores (2017) notes that it may be difcult for participants to explain
why certain parts of a document, such as an instruction sheet, are in bold. Two-dimen-
sional images in black and white may also pose difculties of identication and inter-
pretation (Bigelow & Vinogradov, 2011; Huettig & Mishra, 2014), potentially leading
to misunderstanding, for example, of illustrations accompanying instruction sheets for
medication (Dowse et al., 2011).
Again, some studies (e.g., Huettig & Mishra, 2014) indicate that LESLLA learners may
nd it easier to understand and interpret information that is closer to their personal ex-
perience than abstract or hypothetical situations (Bigelow & Vinogradov, 2011; Huettig
& Mishra, 2014; Keller, 2017). Thus, materials that present situations far removed from
their day-to-day reality (e.g., in which they are asked to plan a travel itinerary) or which
ask them to pretend (e.g., perform a role-playing exercise) or to deal with language in an
abstract and decontextualized way (e.g., by learning the letters of the alphabet individu-
ally; see Vinogradov, 2008) may be unsuitable for some LESLLA learners.
Lastly, LESLLA learners are apt to favour collaborative modes of learning rather than
those based on individualism and competition that hold sway in the Western academic
world (DeCapua & Marshall, 2015), for in many collectivist cultures such as those certain
LESLLA learners come from, achievement of group objectives takes precedence over the
accrual of benets to the individual, and cooperation is undertaken to achieve such com-
mon objectives (ibid.). So, teaching approaches and teaching materials that focus on the
individual’s work and success can place learners in a novel and uncomfortable situation.
These characteristics of LESLLA learners must of course be considered during the
choice, adaptation and creation of teaching materials, so as to narrow the cultural gap
between their ways of learning and the academic approach adopted in Western cultures,
which is neither universal nor necessary for learning (DeCapua & Marshall, 2011). In
what follows we shall see how research studies have grappled with that issue.
2.2 A review of studies of teaching materials for LESLLA learners
To our knowledge, few studies have looked at teaching materials in the context of
immigrant LESLLA learners. There does not seem to be any published overview of
the teaching materials used in classes for literacy development in the target language
(Bédard, 2021). However, a few studies have looked more generally at the reality of
teachers working with LESLLA learners and have addressed the issue of teaching
materials.
In the studies we have been able to review, one main tendency emerges clearly: there
is very little such material produced expressly for that learner cohort. Indeed, teachers
generally nd that access to teaching materials suited to these learners is problematic, as
little or nothing is available in the way of resources explicitly designed for them. As early
as 1992, Papazian and Van Isschot highlighted the difculty of nding teaching materi-
96 Teaching materials for use in French classes for immigrants...
als suitable for adult learners in the area of language and literacy, as the materials avail-
able to teachers were actually designed either for second language teaching for learners
already having some schooling, or for the acquisition of literacy in their rst language.
That situation has been frequently decried in subsequent studies (e.g., Bédard, 2021; Far-
relly, 2014; Ollerhead, 2010; Perry, 2013; Strube et al., 2013). Starting from this central
issue, the studies take different tacks: they describe some of the material that is actually
used, or they focus on issues teachers encounter as a result of the lack of materials, or
they make recommendations on their use.
In particular, the dearth of formal materials created specically for LESLLA learners
leads teachers to employ audio and/or video materials to supplement a core textbook
or to make use of a variety of teaching materials, such as photocopies, colour cards, or
real-life objects (Strube et al., 2013). Some studies have recommended that teaching ma-
terials should better relate to LESLLA learners’ day-to-day lives outside the classroom,
to further contextualize learning in this particular teaching situation (see, e.g., Vinogra-
dov, 2008). For example, consideration could be given to the use of authentic materials
(i.e., printed matter not designed for educational purposes, such as supermarket yers
or utility bills (Condelli, 2004)); the author showed that the use of such real-world ma-
terials had a positive effect on LESLLA learners’ reading skills, insofar as these non-pur-
pose-built resources contain information that learners want to know and which is direct-
ly related to their life experiences.
Some studies also note that the lack of materials for these learners can be a source of
dissatisfaction and tension. For example, Ollerhead’s (2010) case study, which sought
to examine the ways in which two teachers working in the LESLLA context were navi-
gating Australia’s Language, Literacy and Numeracy Program (LLNP), highlights the pos-
sible frustrations resulting from this lack of materials, as none of the available materials
allowed the participants to meet the needs of their multi-level classrooms. In addition,
the teachers expressed feelings of helplessness in their work due to the fact that their
teaching institution gave them no help in the selection and use of teaching materials for
LESLLA learners. Farrelly (2014) too indicates that this lack of materials is likely to gen-
erate tension in the way teachers approach the use of materials; thus, a more experienced
teacher might have an easier time juggling and adapting different materials, while an-
other might instead use a single source of material for want of anything better.
To compensate for the lack of adequate materials for their LESLLA learners, teachers
sometimes create homemade materials or adapt existing materials. Where existing mate-
rials are adapted, they may be designed for elementary school pupils, L1 literacy, or for-
eign language instruction for persons having some schooling, and then be repurposed
for use with LESLLA learners (Vinogradov, 2013). Changes may be made to the form of
the document, such as by simplifying its layout (Farrelly, 2014), or to its content, such as
by changing the childlike content of an exercise designed for children so that it is more
appropriate for adults (Farrelly, 2013; Vinogradov, 2013). Such creation and adaptation
is another issue, since it is a time-consuming task for teachers (Farelly, 2014; Ollerhead,
2012; Perry & Hart, 2013).
Finally, the scarcity of materials may not be unrelated to the heterogeneity of the learn-
ers’ socio-demographic proles (age, mother tongue, etc.) and academic proles (ed-
ucational background, level of schooling, etc.), which is another issue in terms of the
materials used with LESLLA learners in the classroom (e.g., Benseman, 2014; Bigelow
& Vinogradov, 2011; Fortier et al., 2021). In response to this challenge, some researchers
have developed initiatives to provide teachers with teaching materials that are better
adapted to heterogeneous groups. For example, digital tools have been created to en-
courage independent work among LESLLA learners, allowing them to progress at their
own pace, regardless of the prole of other learners in the class. Such is the case, for ex-
ample, of the Digital Literacy Instructor, a software program developed to support LESL-
LA learners in independent learning of grapheme-phoneme correspondence in German,
Bédard, Fortier & Amireault 97
English, Finnish and Dutch (Craats & Young-Scholten, 2015; Cucchiarini et al., 2015).
Speech recognition enables LESLLA learners to practise on their own at a time of their
choosing, as the technology provides automatic feedback on the learners’ pronunciation,
so that they are no longer dependent on the teacher for correction. Despite the apparent
relevance of this resource, there is no information available on the extent to which it has
been tested or how it is being used in educational settings, since the studies cited pro-
vide only a bare-bones description.
3 Theorical Orientation: Activity Theory
To make sense of questions surrounding the use of teaching materials in LESLLA classes
of Quebec, we have made use of Engeström’s (1987; 1999; 2001) Activity Theory (AT).
Adopting a sociocultural perspective based on Vygotsky (1978), this theory employs
the concept of mediation, according to which human actions in pursuit of an objective
are governed by the use of physical or symbolic tools (Lantolf, 2011). In other words,
any activity is understood as a series of actions carried out by a subject (e.g., a teacher)
through the use of tools (e.g., teaching materials) that aim at the development of an
object (e.g., teaching an L2). In order to better take into account the collective nature of
this mediation, Engeström (1987; 1999; 2001) added three other elements: 1) the rules
that regulate activities (e.g. a Ministry textbook to be used), 2) the community that is part
of the social environment (e.g., other teachers working at a given teaching centre), and
3) the division of labour among the individuals in the community (e.g. the choice and
purchase of teaching materials).
These six components (subjects, tools, objects, rules, community and division of la-
bour), represented by Cole and Engeström (1993) with triangles (see Figure 1) are far
from static. They are linked to each other and they constantly interact to shape or modify
the actions that individuals take in order to achieve their objective. One of the key ele-
ments of the theory is that these interactions engender tensions between the components
of AT that have the potential to transform the activity. These tensions, which are inher-
ent to any human activity, are not conceptualized as failure but rather as potential for
improvement within the activity system (Engeström, 2001). Identifying tensions could
thus provide a better understanding of the key dynamics and issues involved in the use
of teaching materials by LESLLA teachers.
Figure 1 Engeström’s triangles (from Cole & Engeström, 1993, p. 8)
98 Teaching materials for use in French classes for immigrants...
For example, Farrelly (2013) employed AT to “[highlight] the relationships and tensions
between the teachers and the tools1 available to them within their teaching activity
systems” (p. 25). Her results give an idea of the use of teaching materials in a LESLLA
context as well as the tensions that emerge from it. For instance, teachers (subject)
mentioned the lack of appropriate texts for LESLLA learners (tools) to teach English as a
second language, forcing them to create new materials or adapt existing ones even though
they lacked the time and resources to do so. This tension identied between subject and
tools led to a feeling of frustration among participants as the teachers expressed a desire
for better collaboration and sharing of teaching resources. The author concludes that a
collaborative approach to professional development, such as peer observation or teacher
study circles, where concrete problems encountered in the classroom can be shared and
solved, would be an accessible way of mitigating this conicting dynamic within the
activity system.
Thus, we believe that the use of AT and its six components affords us a relevant frame-
work to make sense of intricate human activity, especially when scientic literature is
lacking (Brink & Nel, 2019), as it is the case with the LESLLA context in general (Plonsky,
2017). The value of this theory for our research is therefore twofold. Firstly, AT serves
as an organizing principle to identify the teaching material and its uses in the LESLLA
context, as the six components afford clear categories for what comes into play in the use
of teaching materials (for example, the division of labour component gives information
about an important aspect of the material: whether it is homemade, adapted, used as is,
etc.). Secondly, AT can also help us understand the complex dynamics and tensions that
underlie this activity.
In sum, because the supply of learning materials for LESLLA learners appears anemic,
a number of issues may arise, including a signicant workload for teachers who must
create or adapt materials for classes where learners have various different proles. As
very few recent studies address that reality, we feel it is essential, above all, to nd out
more about how teachers use teaching materials, especially in the context of Quebec,
where there are neither any guidelines nor any information on what really happens in
educational settings. Thus, in the light of the foregoing, this article focuses on the follow-
ing two research questions:
1) What kind of teaching materials are used in French classes for LESLLA learners in
Quebec ?
2) What are the issues associated with the use of these materials?
To answer these research questions, AT will be applied to reveal and describe the teaching
materials (Q1) and the issues associated with their uses, which are conceptualized as
tensions between the components of the system (Q2). We also believe it is essential to
give the oor to teachers working in this eld; the next section will therefore look at the
methodological approach we have chosen in order to highlight the teachers’ points of
view on their use of teaching materials.
4 Methodological approach
This article employs a mixed method whereby quantitative and qualitative data are
drawn from two data sources. As a rst step, and in the context of a broader research
project on the realities of teaching LESLLA learners, we used an online questionnaire to
gather data from teachers on several aspects of French courses for those learners (e.g.,
teaching practices, assessment, teaching materials, etc.). Note, however, that this article
will focus only on their responses regarding teaching materials. In a second phase, to
1. In Farrelly’s (2014) study, the tools component is broader than in ours, as it included any physical (i.e. teaching
materials) or cognitive (i.e. teacher’s knowledge and beliefs) resources a teacher can access in their practice.
Bédard, Fortier & Amireault 99
esh out our research, interviews were conducted with individual teachers, dealing
specically with the use of teaching materials in French classes for LESLLA learners, in
order to obtain a more in-depth account of their use from the teachers’ perspective.
4.1 Participants
The participants in our work were teachers working in various educational centres
offering French courses for LESLLA learners. In all, 53 people completed the
questionnaire. Just over a third of the participants specically indicated that they held a
bachelor’s degree in teaching French as a Second Language (n=20), while many others
(n=16) held a bachelor’s degree in teaching in another eld (e.g., French as a First
Language or Preschool and Elementary Education) while the rest (n=15) had no teaching
background and came from other elds (e.g., literature, philosophy and industrial
relations). Participants’ experience working with LESLLA learners also varied widely:
nearly a third reported having more than 6 years of experience (n=17); most reported 2–5
years of experience with LESLLA learners (n=21), and close to a quarter stated that they
had worked with such learners for 6–23 months (n=13).
Subsequently, seven teachers participated in a one-on-one interview (however, since
the administration of the online questionnaire was anonymous and condential, we are
unable to indicate how many of the general interview participants had previously com-
pleted the online questionnaire). Of these participants, the majority (n=5) had a teach-
ing background: four had completed a bachelor’s degree in teaching French as a Second
Language and one held a bachelor’s degree in Preschool and Elementary Education,
while the other two had studied in the eld of languages and literature. In addition,
there was a wide disparity in their teaching experience with LESLLA learners, which
ranged from 3 to 23 years. Finally, because of our small sample size, pseudonyms were
used to preserve participants’ anonymity.
4.2 Survey instruments
As mentioned earlier, two instruments were used to collect the data: 1) an online
questionnaire on various aspects of teaching LESLLA learners, including teaching
materials, which allowed us to gather quantitative data from a larger number of people,
and 2) a one-on-one interview focusing solely on teaching materials, which allowed us
to gather more in-depth qualitative data.
Online questionnaire
Originally created as part of a larger research project, the online questionnaire comprises
six sections and some one hundred questions, designed in Lime Survey software. Its
main purpose was to report on the practices of teachers working with LESLLA learners
(e.g., their assessment practices) and the factors inuencing these practices (e.g., their
beliefs about their students). Because the scope of the project for which we created the
questionnaire is much bigger than that of this article, we are particularly interested
here in the 14 questions that dealt more precisely with teaching materials. These are
specically related to 1) the type of material used (e.g., see statement 1 in gure 1), 2) its
use in the classroom (e.g., see statement 2 in gure 1), and 3) its creation or adaptation
(e.g., see statement 3 in gure 1). Participants were asked to respond to the questions
by indicating, on a 4-point Likert scale, how often they implemented the practices
presented.
100 Teaching materials for use in French classes for immigrants...
Always Most of the
time
Seldom Never Don’t know/
Does not
apply
1. I use authentic materials (e.g., songs, yers,
Weather Network website) not created specically
for language learning
2. I allow students to use digital devices (e.g., their
cell phones) in class to translate, take pictures, etc.)
3. I create original material
Figure 2 Excerpt from the questionnaire on teaching practices
The data collected using this instrument helped us to answer our two research questions,
but the interviews were necessary to get a broader and richer picture of the issues.
Interview
The interviews consisted of 20 questions divided into four sections: 1) general information
about the participants (teaching experience, academic background, current teaching
context); 2) a description of the teaching materials used in the classroom and their
characteristics (e.g., During the session that ended a few weeks ago, did you use the following
types of materials: textbooks, videos, authentic documents, etc.?); 3) the choice of materials
(e.g., Does a program, curriculum or framework guide your choice of teaching materials?);
and, 4) classroom use of materials for linguistic and cultural competency development
(e.g., Can you show me a concrete example of teaching materials to develop oral prociency?
What challenges do you face with this material and why?). The interviews were conducted
remotely by telephone or via an online communication application such as FaceTime,
Skype or Zoom, and were digitally recorded for analysis.
4.3 Data Processing and Analysis
Quantitative data, collected in the form of Likert scales, were processed to report the
frequency of each response. The interviews were rst transcribed verbatim and then
analyzed through the lens of Activity Theory (AT) using NVivo software. We rst read
the transcript and identied units of analysis corresponding to the six components
of AT (subjects, tools, objects, rules, community and division of labour); these which
represented our main themes and our rst level of analysis. Then, at a second level of
analysis, we divided the units of analysis under each theme into emerging subthemes in
order to describe more precisely what constitutes each component of AT. For example,
when a participant said they shared teaching material with other teachers in their
teaching centre, their response was rst coded under the theme community, and then, at
our second level of analysis, we created the subtheme other teachers. This process gave
us an overall view of the components of the activity under investigation, enabling us to
answer our two research questions.
For our rst research question (What kind of teaching materials are used in French
classes for LESLLA learners in Quebec?), we isolated the tools theme and looked at the
different subthemes that had been spun off (i.e., textbooks or videos, when someone had
mentioned using these types of materials), thus providing a description of the materials
used by participants.
For our second research question (What are the issues associated with the use of these
materials?), the analysis was conducted by looking at how the six components of AT we
had previously dened interacted with each other and the tensions (here represented as
issues with the use of teaching materials) that emerge from these dynamics. It was only
by taking this overall view of the components of the activity under investigation that we
were able to reveal the issues associated with the use of teaching materials in the LESL-
Bédard, Fortier & Amireault 101
LA context. For example, the theme time-consuming nature of creating was highlighted by
looking at the interaction between the subject (the teacher) and the division of labour (i.e.
teachers told us that creating material takes a lot of time that they do not have).
It should be noted, too, that for each theme and subtheme the data analysis gave us
the number of participants whose comments related thereto. This number is reported in
our results as n (e.g., n=5 means that ve people mentioned one or more items related
to a theme or subtheme). Thus, even where a teacher reported using multiple textbooks,
the textbooks subtheme would be counted only once for that person. Finally, the extracts
presented in the following chapter were chosen for their relevance in exemplifying our
results.
5 Results
This section presents the principal results guided by AT and related to our two research
questions: 1) What kind of teaching materials are used in French classes for LESLLA
learners in Quebec? and 2) What are the issues associated with the use of these materials?
For the outline, we chose to focus on the materials actually used by the teachers and their
opinion of these materials (4.1). We then set out the broader issues related to the use of
these materials in the classroom (4.2).
5.1 Overview of the teaching materials used
To obtain a more accurate picture of the kind of materials used by participants in
the classroom, we made use of AT, isolating the tools component of the activity, thus
giving us an in-depth description of the teaching materials used. The interview was our
primary source of information as it afforded us a clearer picture of the materials used by
participants in the classroom. Indeed, one question explicitly asked them to identify the
materials used in the classroom. The responses to this question are summarized in Table
1. Since teachers almost always specied whether the material was used as is (i.e. without
any modication), adapted, or created from scratch, we incorporated this information
into the outline to make it as representative as possible of actual usage.
Table 1 Teaching materials used by teachers
Teaching materials Used as is Adapted Created Not
specied
AUDIO (n=7)
Audio from a textbook (n=5) X X
Other audio (n=3) X X
AUTHENTIC DOCUMENTS (n=7)
Video or audio les (n=7) X
Printed documents (n=7) X
Online documents (n=4) X
Objects (n=3) X
PHOTOCOPIED HANDOUTS (n=6)
Photocopies of books and textbooks (n=5) X X
Worksheets (grammar, vocabulary, oral, reading and other)
(n=4)
X
Other photocopied handouts (n=3) X
GAMES (n=7)
Games (n=7) X X X X
TEXTBOOKS (n=6)
Textbooks (n=6) X X X
102 Teaching materials for use in French classes for immigrants...
DIGITAL TOOLS (n=6)
Computer and software (n=6) X X
Website (n=5) X
Phone, tablet and apps (n=4) X
Email (n=1) X
REFERENCE WORKS (n=7)
Digital works (n=3) X
Paper books (n=7) X X
VIDEOS (n=2)
Textbook videos (n=1) X
YouTube (n=2) X
Other (n=1) X
The rst insight we glean from Table 1 is the wide variety of materials that were clas-
sied under the tools component of the activity. Indeed, teachers report using audio and
video materials (e.g., audio provided with a textbook), real-world materials (e.g., news-
paper classied ads), photocopied handouts (e.g., a photocopy of a page from a text-
book that is not necessarily intended for LESLLA learners, such as Par ici), games (e.g.,
bingo), digital tools (e.g., smartphone applications, such as a translation app) as well as
reference books (e.g., the Bescherelle). The use of a specic textbook was mentioned by
six participants; the one provided by the Ministry in charge of LESLLA classes, Digne
d’attention, heads the list (it was mentioned by four participants). Finally, we note that,
in addition to materials that, by denition, are used as is (e.g., authentic paper or digital
materials), creative or adaptive work was often done by the teachers.
In the online questionnaire, teachers were not asked to name the materials they used,
but rather to indicate whether they used adapted materials or created them from scratch.
The responses are consistent with the interview responses in that a large number of
teachers indicated that they always or most of the time adapted materials designed for
other student populations (n=34). Indeed, the adapted teaching materials came main-
ly from resources intended for elementary school pupils (n=32), literate adults or those
with some schooling (n=30), and adults never schooled in their L1 (n=28). To a lesser ex-
tent, questionnaire respondents also reported adapting materials originally intended for
adolescents (n=9) or learners of English or other languages (n=4).
The interviews also provided more qualitative assessments of the materials teachers
use, which they sometimes use as is even though they may be dissatised with them (see
excerpt A) or which they use with their own adaptations. Many mentioned that the ma-
terials available were sometimes outdated (n=6) or ill-suited to teaching LESLLA learn-
ers (n=4, see excerpt B); contained inappropriate vocabulary from a European variety of
French rather than taking into account the specicities of the local Quebec variety (n=2);
were too print-based (n=2); infantilizing (n=2), incomplete or unavailable (n=2); were
too focused on Montreal reality2 (n=1); decontextualized (n=1); or contained cultural ref-
erences that were opaque to these learners (n=1) (see excerpt C).
Excerpt A:3 Often it doesn’t work. Often it’s too difcult […]. Often I’ll choose homemade
materials, but in practice we don’t always have time to create them. As a result, I’ve no
choice sometimes but to use material that isn’t quite right. (Heidi)
Excerpt B: I use very few ready-made things, because it’s often too much, it’s already too
complicated for the students’ level. (Ève)
2. Most immigrants to Quebec settle in Montreal (MIFI, 2020).
3. All excerpts were translated from French to English by the authors.
Bédard, Fortier & Amireault 103
Excerpt C: Sometimes they’re not even … um … the thing is, their cultural references are
so different that they won’t even recognize what they’re seeing … you know, a drawing
of a little boy in overalls, it’s supposed to make you think of childhood …” [Q. And for
them that’s not childhood.] Exactly. (Camille)
Then, too, many participants found the Ministry’s textbook for LESLLA learners, Digne
d’attention, to be unsuitable (see excerpt D):
Excerpt D: To be honest … a lot of what they want us to use actually, like the main text
we use, it’s out of date, it’s not updated … no, really, it’s not at all suited to our classes.
(François)
While most of the comments made about the materials used were rather negative, some
interviewees did nd some positive things in them, such as the use of illustrations (n=4,
see excerpt E) and the fact that they gave learners more of a hands-on experience (n=3,
see excerpt F).
Excerpt E: Yes, I love these materials because there are a lot of illustrations to help with
the grammar. Here, I’ll give you an example, look, it’s all pictures, it’s fantastic for gram-
mar. Lots of pictures. For people that haven’t been to school, that’s what it takes. (Alice)
Excerpt F: The people we’re dealing with, for the most part, have low literacy, the class-
room environment is new to them or they haven’t been in a classroom for a very long
time. So they can’t really keep, you can’t keep their attention on the blackboard that long.
So it’s very, very important for them to handle things. For me, it’s often cards and pic-
tures. (Camille)
In short, our results show the great variety of teaching materials used by teachers,
although they did not always nd them suitable for their students; it explains why
materials where sometimes modied or created from scratch rather than used as is. This
rundown of the materials used gives us a clearer and unprecedented picture of what
teachers use in the classroom, and what they think of what is available to them. However,
by taking a closer look at the issues surrounding teachers’ use of these materials, we may
better grasp the reality of using teaching materials with LESLLA learners.
5.2 Issues with the use of the materials
The interviews and questionnaire raised some issues teachers had with the use of
classroom materials with LESLLA learners. These issues, through the lens of AT, are
conceptualized as tensions between the components of the system. Before delving into
these questions in greater detail, it is crucial to rst get an overview of the components
that make up the activity by dening each one of them from our data. This rst step,
represented by Figure 2, will enable us to better see and understand what is included in
each component (subject, community, object, rules, division of labour and tools) and the
various tensions between them.
104 Teaching materials for use in French classes for immigrants...
Figure 3 Activity system for the use of teaching materials in Quebec LESLLA classes
All teachers who answered the online questionnaire or participated in the interviews
constitute the subject component, that is, the point of view from which the activity
system is analyzed and understood. The object (the objectives of the activity) is multiple
as subjects told us they use teaching materials to develop various skills and knowledge:
French language teaching, literacy, numeracy and cultural, social and civic knowledge.
Explicit instructions on how to use the teaching materials are also an objective of the
activity, since our results indicate that students can have difculties understanding
the instructions of materials. The community, namely other actors that share the same
object as the subject, includes students, other teachers (at their teaching centre or in the
online community) with whom they share materials, government ofcials who provide
textbooks, and bookstores where subjects buy teaching materials. A set of rules also
mediate the use of teaching materials: Ministry textbooks to be used, class and school
rules and the various programs, scales or syllabi teachers have to follow. The division of
labour component encompasses purchasing, adapting, selecting, creating and researching
materials. Finally, the tools component is made up of a great variety of teaching materials,
which were presented in great detail in the previous section.
Now that we have a better understanding of the activity system in the use of teaching
materials in the LESLLA context in Quebec (see Figure 2), a qualitative analysis of the
data gathered during the interviews and guided by AT reveals three main tensions be-
tween the components of the activity: the perceived lack of materials (between subjects
and tools) (5.2.1), the challenges of adaptation and creation (between subjects and division
of labour) (5.2.2) and student heterogeneity in class groups (between subjects and commu-
nity) (5.2.3).
Bédard, Fortier & Amireault 105
5.2.1 Tension 1: Lack of materials
A major tension was identied between the subject and tools components as teachers
mentioned the unavailability of materials for teaching LESLLA learners. Almost all
interviewees reported a lack of available teaching materials for teaching LESLLA learners
(n=6, see Excerpt G). Only one person felt that there were lots of materials available (n=1,
see excerpt H).
Excerpt G: We really haven’t any materials … There’s nothing. We fall between the
cracks, as we’re always saying. (Ève)
Excerpt H: Actually I’d say we do have lots and lots of materials … Notebooks and all
that, you can really sort through and nd things. And we can adapt the materials, too, we
don’t have to use the whole page, we can … I’d say we do we have enough. (Florence)
However, while this participant did not perceive a lack of materials, she did indicate that
the materials available sometimes need to be adapted, which raises a new issue: the time
and energy teachers must spend adapting and creating materials.
5.2.2 Tension 2: Adaptation and creation of materials
The majority of teachers responding to the online survey (n=29) as well as the interview
(n=6, see excerpt I) said that creating and adapting pre-existing materials was something
they did, highlighting the tension between the subject and division of labour components,
as they do not always have time for this additional task. Respondents to the online
questionnaire indicated that they adapted materials primarily from materials intended
for elementary school pupils (n=32), adults learning French (n=30), or Francophone
adults needing to develop their literacy skills (n=28). Similar responses were given in the
interview, although some participants specied that they adapted material originally
designed for the LESLLA context (n=3).
Excerpt I: Say I want to work on accents, for instance: acute accents, grave accents. Then,
looking at an exercise in a school workbook, there are words that are, like, way too com-
plex. As it stands it might be a good exercise, but I’ll adapt it, with words we’ve already
studied, for example. (Ève)
A large majority of respondents to the online questionnaire (n=44), and all interviewees
(n=7), said that in addition to adapting existing materials, they would create new
materials. These two practices raise certain issues for teachers, whether it be the length
of time it takes to create (n=3) or adapt (n=2), the workload involved (n=3), or the lack
of consistency between the documents modied (n=2, see excerpt J) or created (n=3) by
teachers.
Excerpt J: Sometimes we adapt things, we modify them, but to me that’s not great, be-
cause we lose consistency: maybe I change such and such a page, but someone else is us-
ing it as is. That’s a bit tiresome. (Alice)
It should be noted that other participants saw creating materials as actually saving time,
as simpler and faster than searching for or adapting existing materials (n=3, see excerpt
K). Indeed, the interviewees mentioned a great variety of places where they look for
teaching materials: inside the centre (n=6) (e.g., by accessing different resources such as
the library) as well as outside the centre (n=6) (notably on the internet or in bookstores).
Excerpt K: In the end I realized I’d spent so much time looking for something suitable
that I would have been better off doing it myself. It would have been faster and it would
have been really perfect for what I wanted to do. (Heidi)
106 Teaching materials for use in French classes for immigrants...
It was also mentioned that the creation of materials was a good thing because the learning
materials created were more relevant to the reality of teaching LESLLA learners (n=2),
and in particular the heterogeneity of students within a given class group.
5.2.3 Tension 3: Student heterogeneity
Another tension was raised between the subject and their students, who belong to
AT’s community component. Indeed, student heterogeneity, both in terms of learner
demographics (age, L1, and culture) and educational attainment, represents the third
main tension. It seems teachers have a hard time accessing materials that meet the needs
of the whole class (n=5, see excerpt L). In line with this, another issue raised by teachers
is the perceived difculty some LESLLA learners have in understanding the content or
the instructions of the material (n=6, see excerpt M), which forces teachers to explicitly
teach how to use teaching materials or what to do with them (n=6).
Excerpt L: They decided to put illiterate and less literate learners in the same class. If you
do that, or keep on with that, please give us something basic for everyone, and then some
enriched material for the less literate ones. (Camille)
Excerpt M: You really have to repeat and be extremely structured, precisely because the
instructions are so difcult. It’s so difcult to get them to understand the instructions.
(Florence)
Again, some participants also said that the in-house materials always needed to be
readapted to their learners’ changing needs from one session to the next, even where the
participants were teaching the same level (n=2, see excerpt N).
Excerpt N: Yes, well, what I nd hard is that there’s a lot of material to create and it’s
very time-consuming. Then, you know, we’ll often have to change it, because even if
I have another class of Alpha 1, well, if … suppose their needs are different because
they’ve been living in Canada for a longer or a shorter time, or because their moth-
er tongue is not the same: they won’t have the same difculty with phonetics, with vo-
cabulary or whatever. So I nd that there are a lot of things that need to be done over.
(Hélène)
To summarize, our ndings highlighted the wide variety of teaching materials (the tools
component of AT) used by teachers, as well as important tensions between different
components of the activity, such as a lack of materials, issues associated with adaptation
and creation, and issues associated with student heterogeneity.
6 Discussion
Materials take centre stage in L2 education classrooms (Matsuda, 2012), and it appears
that the same is true of classrooms for students struggling with the dual challenges of
learning the majority language and attaining literacy. The purpose of this study, whose
results will be discussed below, was to explore the reality of LESLLA classes—in terms of
the use of teaching materials—from the standpoint of the teachers, and more specically
to present an outline of the materials used in LESLLA classes in Quebec (5.1) and to
highlight the issues associated with them (5.2) from the perspective of AT.
6.1 An overview of the materials used
To our knowledge, this is the rst study to provide a clear overview with concrete
examples of teaching materials used in the LESLLA context, allowing us to better
understand what is being done in the classroom. By isolating the tools component of the
Bédard, Fortier & Amireault 107
activity, our ndings show what a wide variety of materials are used: textbooks, audio
and video content, real-life material, etc. The study by Strube et al. (2013), conducted
in six LESLLA classrooms in the Netherlands, also found signicant teacher use of
materials considered “extra” (real objects, handouts, practice clocks, etc.) in addition to a
textbook, which is considered core material in half of the classes. In this regard, although
LESLLA teachers in Quebec have a textbook provided by the Ministry (Digne d’attention)
and almost all interviewees (6/7) reported using it, none would give it a central role, as
they had many criticisms of it (e.g., unsuitable, out of date, etc.).
Another observation from our overview is how much work is done by teachers to
adapt and create materials. Participants overwhelmingly reported that the materials de-
signed for these learners are ill-adapted to their realities and needs and that, accord-
ingly, they need to do signicant adaptation and creation work. That was also reported
by Farrelly (2014), who saw it as a way to better respond to these learners’ individu-
al needs. Other studies we consulted also noted that teaching materials are sometimes
adapted from resources designed for teaching children in L1, for L1 literacy and L2 for
adults (e.g. Vinogradov, 2013). However, our results (see Figure 2) show that teachers
also adapt materials made for teenagers and for the teaching of languages other than
the one being learned (in our case, French) in addition to existing materials for teach-
ing and learning literacy in L2. In other words, it seems that LESLLA teachers in Que-
bec are drawing on a wider variety of teaching materials than previously reported, and
that even materials that have been explicitly designed for the LESLLA context are being
adapted and modied.
Teachers were also keen to use materials that have some application to real life, as ev-
idenced by their use of authentic documents and digital tools. This desire to use mean-
ingful material attested in our results echoes the work of some authors (e.g., Asfaha,
2015; Condelli, 2004; Vinogradov, 2008; Williams & Murray, 2010), who state that ma-
terials to be used with LESLLA learners must contain information that learners want to
know and can directly relate to their life experiences (DeCapua & Marshall, 2011).
Some positive comments were also made by participants, in particular on the abun-
dance of illustrations. They felt that images were more suitable than text for their stu-
dents who, according to their own experience teaching LESLLA students, are often tak-
ing their rst steps in learning to read and write. This use of visual aids in the material,
recommended in particular by Feldmeiner (2015), does however come with some specif-
ic recommendations (see Bigelow & Vinogradov, 2011; Huettig & Mishra, 2014). Indeed,
two-dimensional black and white images and those lacking context can be unsuitable for
LESLLA learners (Bigelow & Vinogradov, 2011) and, consequently, may hinder rather
than help their understanding. Icons or drawings may also be considered not very effec-
tive with some LESLLA learners due to their abstractness and cultural load (Bigelow &
Vinogradov, 2011; Altherr Flores, 2017). Thus, while our participants seem to set great
store by the amount of imagery present in the teaching materials used, some studies
point out instead how important it is that the visual aid be of good quality. That point
was made by only one of our participants, who spoke of the importance of using authen-
tic photos.
6.2 The issues
Looking at the teaching materials used in language classes for LESLLA learners from the
Activity Theory (AT) point of view allowed us to identify a certain number of challenges,
here conceptualized as tensions between components of the activity. Among these are
the lack of available and appropriate materials for teaching such learners, which is
mentioned in several studies (e.g., Farrelly, 2014; Perry, 2013; Ollerhead, 2010; Papazian
& Van Isschot, 1992; Strube et al., 2013) as well as in our own results as it represents
an important tension between the subject and tools components. We note, too, that this
108 Teaching materials for use in French classes for immigrants...
problem, raised in the early 1990s in Quebec (Papazian & Van Isschot, 1992), remains
unresolved more than thirty years later. The same can be said of the heterogeneity of
learners, which is a predominant characteristic of this teaching context in our results as
well as in certain studies (e.g., Bigelow & Vinogradov, 2011; Craats & Young-Scholten,
2015; Cucchiarini et al., 2015; Williams & Murray, 2010). That heterogeneity, which is
understood as a tension between the subject and the community, poses an important
challenge to the use of teaching materials, as it is difcult to adapt them to learners’
diverse realities: the constant need to create and re-create teaching materials in line with
learners’ changing needs is perceived as problematic by our participants. This also has an
impact on the object of the activity system, as our results show that according to teachers,
it can be difcult for some of their LESLLA learners to understand the teaching material.
Indeed, the responses we obtained allowed us to see that teaching the learners how to
use the teaching materials is in itself an objective for LESLLA classes, an important result
that draws attention to the uniqueness of the LESLLA context.
In both the literature and our interview responses, this heterogeneity and lack of ma-
terials for LESLLA learners has led many teachers to modify and adapt existing materi-
als or develop their own in-house materials (Farrelly, 2013, 2014; Gunn, 2003; Ollerhead,
2010), which represents a tension between the subject and division of labour components.
No wonder, then, that our results show that the content and format of some materials
are adapted by teachers from resources made, for example, for children or for teaching
French as a second language. Such an adaptation is not without its challenges, as it takes
up a lot of teacher time. That result is consistent with Farrelly’s (2014) ndings, which
noted that teachers did not have time to develop or adapt relevant teaching materials for
LESLLA learners. Moreover, materials development was shown in Ollerhead’s (2010)
study to be sometimes a source of frustration, as teachers’ creative work often seemed
insufcient or unsatisfactory. That dissatisfaction is also seen in our participants’ re-
sponses: they reported that the materials created are sometimes poorly designed be-
cause the teachers run out of time, and that developing teaching materials saddles them
with a sizeable workload. That being said, our results show that the division of labour
within the activity is broader than what has been noted previously by other authors: in
addition to choosing, creating and adapting materials, teachers are also responsible for
researching and purchasing them, which adds even more to their workload.
7 Conclusion and pedagogical implications
In focusing on the French-language teaching materials used in classes for LESLLA
learners in Quebec through the lens of Activity Theory (AT), we gained a better
understanding of this teaching/learning context by highlighting a number of issues
concerned with the availability and choice of these materials, which are not without
pedagogical implications. Even though we note that a wide range of materials are used,
including some specically for LESLLA learners, our main nding is the scarcity of
available materials. This apparent contradiction is undoubtedly linked to the strong
heterogeneity of learner proles within the same classes, which leads us to believe that
a single type of material, even one that is designed for this specic context, cannot meet
teachers’ needs, nor, consequently, their students’. Since teachers are already creating
and adapting materials, it would be advantageous for them to be better supported in
that endeavour, through training or the implementation of exchange and observation
workshops within teaching teams in order to promote the sharing of existing materials
that do meet teachers’ needs, as proposed by Farrelly (2014). In addition, it would be wise
to provide teachers with materials with differentiated content at multiple skill levels to
help them manage class heterogeneity. For example, the expected answers to exercises
in the same material could be different depending on learners’ level. Although our
research was carried out in the limited context of Canada’s French-speaking province of
Bédard, Fortier & Amireault 109
Quebec, we believe that these pedagogical implications may be useful in other contexts
where LESLLA learners are learning an additional language in formal settings. Indeed,
our results seem to align with what has been observed in other parts of the world; that
leads us to believe that the challenges faced by Quebec educators are not unique to this
specic context.
That being said, it should be noted that our study has some limitations. COVID-19
forced educational centres to close their doors a few weeks before our data collection,
and thus our interviews, began. As our participants had not been in the classroom for
quite some time when they were interviewed, their perception of their use of learning
materials may have been affected. And meeting with participants virtually rather than
in person deprived us of physical access to the material: teachers sometimes spoke about
material that had been left at their teaching centre and that was therefore inaccessible
during the interviews. Also, since the questionnaire used covered a wide variety of top-
ics other than the use of teaching materials, few questions were devoted to this specic
topic and the data collected thus remain rather limited.
Despite these limitations, this study does afford us a broader picture of the use of
teaching materials in French classes for immigrant LESLLA learners, allowing us to
delve deeper into ways of lending better support to those working in that environment.
In addition, we believe that this initial outline will enable us to better support LESLLA
learners in learning French, so as to promote their linguistic, cultural and professional
integration and enable them to participate more fully in Quebec society. Accordingly,
there would be great value in getting learners’ perspective on their classroom use of
teaching materials for LESLLA learners, to better understand their needs and concerns
and not limit ourselves to the teachers’ perspective.
Acknowledgements :
We would like to thank the participants who took part in our study as well as the anony-
mous reviewers for their insighful comments. We also wish to thank Quebec’s Ministère
de l’Éducation and Quebec’s Ministère de l’Immigration, de la Francisation et de l’In-
tégration for their collaboration in the project.
Funding
This research as been funded by Quebec’s Ministère de l’Immigration, de la Francisa-
tion et de l’Intégration.
Disclosure statement :
The authors declared no conict of interest.
110 Teaching materials for use in French classes for immigrants...
References
Ahmed, M. (2011). Dening and measuring literacy: Facing the reality. International Re-
view of Education, 57(1), 179–197. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11159-011-9188-x
Altherr Flores, J. A. (2017). Social semiotics and multimodal assessment of L2 adult
emergent readers from refugee backgrounds. In M. Sosiński (Ed.), Literacy Education
and Second Language Learning by Adults: Research, Policy and Practice (pp. 9–31). Edito-
rial Universidad de Granada. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8035875
Asfaha, Y. (2015). English for adults in Eritrea: Perspectives and practices in second
language textbook preparation, In I. van de Craats, J. Kurvers & R. van Hout (Eds.),
Adult literacy, second language and cognition (pp. 187–198). Centre for Language Stud-
ies. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8024421
Auditor General of Quebec. Ministère de l’Immigration, de la Francisation et de l’Inté-
gration. (2017). Audit de performance. Francisation des personnes immigrantes: Report of
the Auditor General of Quebec to the National Assembly for 2017–2018. https://www.
vgq.qc.ca/Fichiers/Publications/rapport-annuel/2017-2018-printemps/en_Rap-
port2017-2018-Printemps.pdf
Bédard, V. (2021). Regard sur l’utilisation du matériel didactique en classe d’alphafrancisation
[Master’s thesis, Université du Québec à Montréal]. Archipel.
https://archipel.uqam.ca/15267/
Bautier, É. (2009). Quand le discours pédagogique entrave la construction des usages
littéraciés du langage. Pratiques. Linguistique, littérature, didactique, 143–144, 11–26.
https://doi.org/10.4000/
Benseman, J. (2014). Adult refugee learners with limited literacy: Needs and effective
responses. Refuge: Canada’s Journal on Refugees, 30(1), 93–103.
https://doi.org/10.25071/1920-7336.38606
Bigelow, M., & Vinogradov, P. (2011). Teaching adult second language learners who
are emergent readers. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 31, 120–136.
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0267190511000109
Brink, S., & Nel, C. (2019). Contradictions within an activity of second language read-
ing literacy. South African Journal of Childhood Education, 9(1), 1–11.
https://doi.org/10.4102/sajce.v9i1.687
Chalier, M. (2018). Quelle norme de prononciation au Québec ? Attitudes, représenta-
tions et perceptions. Langage et société, 163(1), 121–144.
https://doi.org/10.3917/ls.163.0121
Chartier, A.-M., & Renard, P. (2000). Cahiers et classeurs: les supports ordinaires du
travail scolaire. Repères, recherches en didactique du français langue maternelle, 22, 135–
159. https://doi.org/10.3406/reper.2000.2347
Cole, M., & Engeström, Y. (1993). A cultural-historical approach to distributed cogni-
tion. In G. Salomon (Ed.), Distributed cognition: Psychological and educational consider-
ations (pp. 1–46). Cambridge University Press.
Condelli, L. (2004). Effective instruction for adult ESL literacy students: Findings from the
What Works study. American Institutes for Research.
Council of Europe (2022). Literacy and second language learning for the linguistic integra-
tion of adult migrants. Reference guide. https://rm.coe.int/prems-008922-eng-2518-lit-
eracy-and-second-language-learning-couv-texte/1680a70e18
Craats, I., & Young-Scholten, M. (2015). Developing technology-enhanced literacy
learning for LESLLA learners. In M. G. Santos et A. Whiteside (Eds.), Low-educated
second language and literacy acquisition (LESLLA): Proceedings of the 9th symposium (pp.
129–150). Lulu Publishing Services. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8022528
Cucchiarini, C., Dawidowicz, M., Filimban, E., Tammelin-Laine, T., van de Craats, I., &
Strik, H. (2015). The digital literacy instructor: Developing automatic speech recog-
nition and selecting learning material for opaque and transparent orthographies. In
Bédard, Fortier & Amireault 111
I. van de Craats, J. Kurvers & R. van Hout (Eds.), Adult literacy, second language and
cognition (pp. 252–278). Centre for Language Studies.
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10605014
DeCapua, A., & Marshall, H. (2011). Reaching ELLs at risk: Instruction for students with limit-
ed or interrupted formal education. Preventing School Failure: Alternative Education for
Children and Youth, 55(1), 35–41. https://doi.org/10.1080/10459880903291680
DeCapua, A., & Marshall, H. (2015). Reframing the conversation about students with
limited or interrupted formal education: From achievement gap to cultural disso-
nance. NASSP Bulletin, 99(4), 356–370. https://doi.org/10.1177/0192636515620662
Dowse, R., Ramela, T., Barford, K.-L., & Browne, S. (2011). Developing visual images
for communicating information about antiretroviral side effects to a low-literate
population. African journal of AIDS research, 9(3), 213–224.
https://doi.org/10.2989/16085906.2010.530172
Engeström, V. (1987). Learning by expanding. An activity-theoretical approach to develop-
mental research. Orienta-Konsultit. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139814744
Engeström, Y. (1999). Activity theory and individual and social transformation. In Y.
Engeström, R. Miettinen, & R.-L. Punamäki (Eds.), Perspectives on activity theory
(pp.1938). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511812774.003
Engeström, Y. (2001). Expansive learning at work: Toward an activity theoretical recon-
ceptualization. Journal of Education and Work, 14(1), 133156.
https://doi.org/10.1080/13639080020028747
Farrelly, R. (2013). Converging perspectives in the LESLLA context. Apples – Journal of
Applied Language Studies, 7(1), 25–44. https://jyx.jyu./handle/123456789/41930
Farrelly, R. (2014). Exploring tensions in the mediated activity of teaching L2 adult
emergent readers. The European Journal of Applied Linguistics and TEFL, 3(1).
Feldmeiner, A. (2015). Encouraging learner autonomy: Working with portfolios, learn-
ing agreements and individualized materials. In I. van de Craats, J. Kurvers, & R.
van Hout (Eds.), Adult literacy, second language and cognition (pp. 89–114). Centre for
Language Studies. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8024383
Fortier, V., Beaulieu, S., & Amireault, V. (2021). Enseignement du français aux per-
sonnes adultes immigrantes en apprentissage de la langue et de la littératie : mieux
comprendre pour encore mieux intervenir. La revue de l’AQEFLS, 34(1).
https://doi.org/10.7202/1076608ar
Gunn, M. (2003). Opportunity for literacy? Preliterate learners in the AMEP. Prospect,
18(2), 37–53. https://search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/aeipt.133957
Huettig, F., & Mishra, R. K. (2014). How literacy acquisition affects the illiterate mind.
A critical examination of theories and evidence. Language and Linguistics Compass,
8(10), 401–427. https://doi.org/10.1111/lnc3.12092
Keller, P. N. (2017). The pedagogical implications of orality on refugee ESL students.
Dialogues, 1(1), 1–12. https://doi.org/10.30617/dialogues1.1.2
Lantolf, J. P. (2011). The Sociocultural Approach to Second Language Acquisition. So-
ciocultural theory, second language acquisition, and articial L2 development. In D.
Atkinson (ed.), Alternative approaches to second language acquisition (pp. 24–47). Taylor
& Francis Group. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203830932
Matsuda, A. (2012). Teaching materials in EIL. In L. Alsagoff, S. L. McKay, G. Hu, & W.
A. Renandya (Eds.), Principles and practices for teaching English as an international Lan-
guage (pp. 168–185). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203819159
Ministère de l’Immigration, de la Francisation et de l’Inclusion (2022). 2016–2020 —
Tableaux de l’immigration permanente au Québec.
http://www.mi.gouv.qc.ca/publications/fr/recherches-statistiques/Immigra-
tion-Quebec-2015-2019.pdf
Ollerhead, S. (2010). Teacher agency and policy response in the adult ESL literacy class-
room. TESOL Quarterly, 44(3), 606-618. https://doi.org/10.5054/tq.2010.230742_1
112 Teaching materials for use in French classes for immigrants...
Ollerhead, S. (2012). Passivity or potential? Teacher responses to learner identity in the
low-level adult ESL literacy classroom. Literacy & Numeracy Studies, 35(1), 63–84.
https://doi.org/10.5130/lns.v20i1.2620
Papazian, N., & Van Isschot, I. (1992). Notre expérience d’alphabétisation dans un
groupe latino-américain de Montréal. In A. Dugas (Ed.), Stratégies d’alphabétisation
du Québec et d’ailleurs (pp. 33–64). Éditions Intelscript inc.
Perry, K. (2013). Becoming qualied to teach low-literate refugees: A case study of one
volunteer instructor. Community Literacy Journal, 7(2), 21–38.
https://doi.org/10.25148/clj.7.2.009347
Perry, K., & Hart, S. (2013). “I’m just kind of winging it.” Preparing and supporting ed-
ucators of adult refugee learners. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 56(2), 110–
122. https://doi.org/10.1002/JAAL.00112
Piccardo, E., & Yaiche, F. (2005). « Le manuel est mort, vive le manuel ! »: plaidoyer
pour une nouvelle culture d’enseignement et d’apprentissage. ELA. Études de lin-
guistique appliquée, 140, 443–458. https://doi.org/10.3917/ela.140.0443
Plonsky, L. (2017). Quantitative research methods. In S. Loewen, & M. Sato (Eds.), The
Routledge handbook of instructed second language acquisition (pp. 505–521). Routledge.
https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315676968
Salvaggio, F. (2018). The designing of digital teaching materials for the inclusion of
pre-A1 L2 learners in the A1 classroom. Paper presented at the Literacy Education
and Second Language Learning for Adults (LESLLA). Palermo, Italy.
Strube, S., van de Craats, I., & van Hout, R. (2013). Grappling with the oral skills: The
learning processes of the low-educated adult second language and literacy learner.
Apples – Journal of Applied Language Studies, 7(1), 45–65.
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8021865
Vygotsky, L. (1978). Mind in society. The development of higher psychological processes. Har-
vard University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvjf9vz4
Vinogradov, P. (2008). “Maestra! The letters speak.” Adult ESL students learning to
read for the rst time. MinneWITESOL Journal, 25.
https://hdl.handle.net/11299/109951
Vinogradov, P. (2013). Dening the LESLLA teacher knowledge base. In T. Tamme-
lin-Laine, L. Nieminen, & M. Martin (Eds.), Low-educated second language and literacy
acquisition: Proceedings of the 8th symposium (pp. 9–24). Jyväskylä University Printing
House. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8021806
Williams, A., & Murray, D. (2010). Get Wise: Content-based teaching for LESLLA refu-
gee youth in adult programs. In T. Wall, & M. Leong (Eds.), Low-educated adult sec-
ond language and literacy acquisition: Proceedings of the 5th symposium (pp. 3–14). Bow
Valley College. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8004047
Received May 29, 2023
Revision received January 31, 2024
Accepted May 20, 2024
