Narratological tools in French teaching

This article reports on ongoing research into the status of narratology in French teaching. We focus on the analysis of a series of semi-structured interviews conducted with nine teachers of 15-19 year olds (upper-secondary level) in the Swiss canton of Vaud. The goal of these interviews was to use narrative theory to shed light on practices listed by the teachers to facilitate reflection on goals and implementation of narratological tools. The data collected enable us to critically examine in our research the use of the term ‘tool’ in the interviews, its status in discourse, and the challenges it presents. Our analysis of the data also makes it possible for us to reflect on the status and the value of these interviews with regard to optimising the narratological toolbox, as well what we can learn for future data collection.