The language insecurity of non-native foreign language teachers

The notion of language insecurity has been regularly explored since the 1960s: research was initially centered around pronunciation issues in different social settings; then a framework of analysis was organized around the so-called peripheral French-speaking communities; finally it was addressed in plurilingual contexts.The present research examines the notion of language insecurity as it is experienced by non-native teachers of foreign languages and in particular Greek teachers of French. This socio-professional group plays a leading role in language diffusion: the challenge is to find ways to mitigate the possible negative effects of language insecurity inherent in their professional context. To this end we constructed a corpus for a qualitative study. The methodology chosen was that of individual semi-directed interviews allowing respondents with diverse profiles in terms of age gender education location and professional context to express themselves on their conception of language insecurity and on the strategies mobilized to cope with it.