Teaching of Urdu in France : Issues and challenges L’enseignement de l’ourdou en France : enjeux et défis En Fr

Résumé En

Urdu has been taught in France since 1825, though it was known at that time as Hindustani. Considered a lingua franca in the nineteenth-century British-occupied Indian territory, the teaching of Urdu was confined to the students and enthusiastic orientalists, for whom the Urdu script was transformed into the Latin alphabet. From 1962, when the Urdu Section was formally inaugurated in INALCO, Paris, new challenges arose to disseminate the teaching of Urdu as a foreign language for non-native speakers, and as a second language for native speakers among second-generation immigrant families from Pakistan. However, a lack of proper manuals and dictionaries in French as a medium to teach Urdu was a hindrance. Also, a lack of qualified teachers who were proficient in both French and Urdu was, and still remains, an increasing concern. Over the past decades, Urdu professors in France have shown tremendous interest in writing Urdu learning manuals in French. The recent, modern curriculum in Urdu teaching at INALCO attempts to provide innovative pedagogy.