Innovation pour l’apprenant, innovation pour l’enseignant

The setting of this experiment is the Defle, French Department for Foreign Students at the Université de Nancy 2. It is an old department, originally designed to help foreign students prepare to undertake university study in French. Studies of French as a Foreign Language (FFL) were organized exclusively in traditional classes with a teacher, until 2003. In collaboration with the Crapel (a center specialized in autonomous learning), the Defle decided to change the FFL learning structures, introducing self-directed learning sessions into the students’ timetable. This article analyses the potential obstacles to the introduction of self-directed learning, through observation of classes and self-directed learning sessions, analyses of questionnaires and practice sheets filled in by the students and of outcome sheets filled in by counsellors, and of a collective discussion on the counsellors’ role and tasks.