Reviews the main issues involved in foreign language teaching methodologies. Particularly discusses how the learner may be affected by the metalanguage used in instruction, when it is composed of traditional grammar terminology or modern linguistic terminology or when none is used. (Text is in French.) (TL)

A "system" comprising the learner-speaker, the specific linguistic system itself, and the interactions with native speakers is posited to explain the dynamics of the acquisition of French as a second language. Through self-regulation, this system devises solutions which pertain to that common area in language at the crossroads of…