The role of the textbook teaching/learning French as a foreign language

To what extent do methods of French as a Foreign Language (FEL) deploy the means required to encourage the exchanges among cultures while respecting cultural diversity? Do these methods take into account the array of contexts under which French is taught? In this paper we intend to show the means by which these methods choose to treat cultural diversity. The textbook can prove very useful as long as one pays attention not to limit oneself to a purely descriptive, ethnographic or culturalist approach, and makes sure to enable the learner to formulate hypotheses about the reasons which condition different habits or behaviors. The Common European Reference Guidelines for Languages propose that teachers should work on different aspects of Characteristic distinctive features of a society and its culture. From that perspective, we have compiled a list of themes that are appropriate to trigger the learner's acquisition of sociocultural knowledge, and to enable him/her to have other viewpoints on reality, as well as to be aware of the non-universal character of his/her own culture. We have thus arrived at an analytical framework to study the whole sociocultural content of textbooks, analysis of sociocultural content of textbooks under the prism of diversity.