Three high school teachers' conceptions of the French they teach: a dissertation

568 Pages·1997·9.3 MB·English

by  Moran, Patrick R.

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THREE HIGH SCHOOL TEACHERS* CONCEPTIONS OF THE FRENCH
THEY TEACH
A DISSERTATION
submitted by
PATRICK MORAN
R.
In partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degreee of
Doctor of Philosophy
LESLEY COLLEGE GRADUATE SCHOOL
January
1997

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Mine is the only name that appears on the title page, but many people helped me in
all phases of this study.
Above all, would like to acknowledge the three teachers who participated in this
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study. greatly appreciated their willingness to openly share their thoughts, feelings,
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and experiences. was a privilege to enter their worlds and to hear their stories.
It I
have a renewed respect and admiration for the challenging work of high school
foreign language teachers.
Debora Sherman, Jay Jones, and Alvino Fantini, my dissertation committee
colleagues, were extremely helpful, providing support, encouragement, and
constructive comment throughout the course of this study. They allowed me leeway,
and they helped me establish boundaries when these were needed.
My peers at the School for International Training graciously accommodated my
reduced presence during the course of my doctoral studies, and were always ready
to listen and to offer kind words and thoughtful counsel.
Finally, would like to acknowledge the love and support of my family, my wife Annie
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and son Jean-Christophe, who granted me the time, space and solitude that
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needed to see my studies through to this dissertation. In the final phases, Jean-
Christophe continually reminded me that writing a dissertation was simply about
numbers of pages, nothing more. All really needed to do, he said, was to write an
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established number of pages, and the dissertation would be completed. It took me a
lot of writing to discover the right number, but eventually did. When reached that
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page number, just as he had predicted, the dissertation was completed. thank him
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for this astute advice.