The creation of L’AMAP is the outcome of a
long process which is necessary to explain in more details.
In
1974, at Vincennes University, a professor of « French as a foreign
language » is the witness of her students’battle against the measures
restricting access of foreign students into French universities. Confronted
with this political struggle, those students are mildly concerned with
methodology of foreign language teaching. Annie Couëdel decides to transform
her course into a committee for the success of the struggle.
No
matter how small the results of that struggle have been, what Annie C. notices
is its pedagogical impact. In their struggle, through taking initiatives,
drafting leaflets, expressing their views in assembly meetings, her students
learnt French more quickly – and a better quality of French – than under any
kind of educational method. Was it because they were obliged to somehow
use French ? The answer is « yes ».
One learns a language better through talking and listening, according to the
current situation, than through reading a dictionary. But there were other
reasons, too.
First
of all, they learnt language as is spoken in the country. Along with the
language, they learnt all the communication codes going with it, postures,
accents, clothes may be, all the elements that are necessary if you want to be
listened to and respected. Behind these codes of expression, they discovered
other codes. They learned how to notice who talks and who listens, how the message
travels, what is accepted and what is not within a specific culture. They
learnt how to interpret the attitude of the staff within some hierarchical
structure, or that of a woman towards a man or vice versa. In short, what it is
all about, rather than technical means to pass on information, is the activity
of a person, his/her status, his/her relationships. This is what we all learnt
when we were children, in the course of a long process.
For this learning process to be successful, it is obviously necessary for the person to enter the process in an autonomous manner. The aim of a language exercise is to obey some rules, some details of which escape us, and which one knows only in a abstract manner – as for example when we do a translation into Latin. The impulse comes from outside. Whereas a deliberate and chosen action is something personal. The self is at stake in whether we succeed or not.
This
is how « pédagogie de projet » was born because it was so well
adapted to that particular university with the highest proportion of foreign
students among French universities, and a particular attitude to teaching,
giving teachers entire freedom of choice as to the methods used, and giving
students entire freedom to choose their teachers, rejecting any preliminary
selection and any form of evaluation until some time later in the school year,
credits being obtained through personal research rather than through
examinations.
In
Annie Couëdel’s course, the students suggest and discuss a number of projects
which become the responsibility of a number of groups of students. Each project
is then presented to the teacher. These projects – a newsletter, a cultural
festival – can be implemented inside the university campus itself, in the town
or in the area concerned, or anywhere in the world (for example, building a
library in Togo or a school in Mexico). In order to promote these projects, to
allow for their realisation, to support the necessary financial or
administrative application procedures, a students’association called CIVD
(Centre Interculturel de Vincennes ŕ Saint-Denis) was created 20 years ago.
Under
the initiative of a Chilean film director called Daniel Sandoval, L’AMAP was
created by former members of the CIVD, former students and professors in Paris
8, students implied in current projects and other people who had the
opportunity of witnessing the building of theses projects and who wished for
the development of an intercultural relationship where peoples and cultures
could meet internationally.