L'enseignement et l'apprentissage de la conjugaison en FLE : comment réduire les difficultés engendrées par l'orthographe ?

French verb morphology has always been a major challenge for learners as well as teachers of French as a foreign language. Learning difficulties arise not only from the inherent complexity of the conjugation system itself, but mostly from the traditional description found in specialized books, grammars, etc. French spelling alone tends to complexify the actual oral verb morphology by more than 60%, thus hindering efficient learning. Following Dubois (1967), Csécsy (1968), Pouradier Duteil (1997), etc., I suggest an alternative approach, exclusively based on phonetic transcription, and starting with plural forms instead of singular ones (Mayer 1969). For more than 500 verbs of the 2nd and 3rd groups, this strategy allows learners to first memorize the present tense plural form e.g. /illiz/ (ils lisent, "they read") and take the stem's final consonant away to get the singular /illi/ (il lit, "he reads").

De pronuntiatione linguae gallicae ([Reprod.]) / Claude de Sainliens

Collection : Archives de la linguistique française ; 356

Conjugaisons règles et instructions : mout propres et neccessairement requises pour ceux qui désirent apprendre françois, italien, espagnol et flamen ; Brève instruction contenante la manière de bien prononcer et lire le françois, italien, espagnol, et flamen ([Reprod.]) / Gabriel Meurier

Collection : Archives de la linguistique française ; 281

Regular grammaticales ([Reprod.]) / Guarini Veronensis

Collection : Italian books before 1601 ; 86.26

Dictionaire, colloques, ou dialogues en quatres langues, Flamen, François, Espaignol et italien ([Reprod.])

Collection : French books before 1601 ; 89.5