The Integration of ICT in the Teaching and Learning of French for Specific Purposes (FSP) in the Algerian University Context: Between Techno-Pedagogical Imperatives and Realities on the Ground"

Abstract

Algerian universities display a distinctive sociolinguistic configuration: students in
scientific and technical fields, schooled almost exclusively in Arabic before higher education,
suddenly face curricula taught mainly in French. This linguistic discontinuity makes French for
specific purposes a decisive factor in academic achievement, at a time when information and
communication technologies for education (ICTE) have become an unavoidable horizon of
university pedagogy, especially since the shift to distance learning triggered by the Covid-19
pandemic. This article examines the conditions under which ICTE can be effectively integrated
into the teaching and learning of French for specific purposes in the Algerian university context.
After clarifying the concepts of French for specific and academic purposes and of ICTE, it confronts
the techno-pedagogical requirements of successful integration — the alignment of technology,
pedagogy and content, instructional design, and teacher professionalization — with realities on
the ground: infrastructural constraints, the digital divide, minimalist uses of learning platforms
and attitudinal resistance. The added value of technology, it is argued, is neither automatic nor
intrinsic: it depends on a contextualized pedagogical project, a coherent training policy and
institutional recognition of digital instructional design work.