"La Tour Eiffel - Concours de Français"

In 1987, Willy Clijsters, professor FLE (French as Foreign Language) at the University of Hasselt (Flanders, Dutch-speaking part of Belgium) and president of DiWeF (Didactical Study Group French), which is an association of Flemish teachers FLE, launched "La Tour Eiffel - Concours de Français".

This contest consisted of a written selection test of 100 multiple choice questions in three different categories, followed by a classification interview in front of a mixed jury of teachers and representatives of the business world. The elimination question lists were mainly centred on everyday communication and had been developed in a contrasting approach. This means that the questions were partially written in the source language Dutch.

The initiative, which was launched in 1988 to make the teaching of French more dynamic for youngsters in the Belgian province of Limburg, welcomed about 1,200 participants from all over Flanders. Soon, all the Flemish universities (Leuven - Kortrijk - Ghent - Antwerp - Brussels) joined the organization. Growing very quickly and strongly ever since, LTECF has received about 5,000 candidates for each of the last few years of the competition!
 

On the Internet

At the request of the participants and the schools, the lists of questions produced yearly were made public and later on made available as two teaching/ learning software packages. In 1998, 2,700 questions were published on the Internet as part of the website of the Flemish Government. The internet user now can make his own selection of questions, starting from a series of parameters such as the degree of difficulty and the aspect(s) of the language he wants to test.

Since the opening, the site has known a significant success: more than 500 visitors a day!
 

On to the conquest of the world

Starting from the concept of the contest, which is one of the most successful educational initiatives in the field thus far, W. Clijsters, assisted by Martine Verjans, the general co-ordinator of this Flemish initiative, and by Philippe Gilliéron, who has been their strong support and ambassador for all aspects connected with Paris, decided to extend this unique experience to all the young (and... even less young) persons of the entire world, in order to encourage them in their efforts of learning and practising the French language.

In order to do so, the huge sets of questions, first created as a Dutch-French question bank, has been adapted to other languages. Furthermore, a large spectrum of varied questions clarifying the French-speaking realities throughout the world are being developed.
 

For the youngsters all over the world

The translation-transformation of the 3,300 questions of the question bank started in 2001 with English and Spanish as new source languages. This unprecedented undertaking, with its many linguistic and cultural challenges and the development of a new site as well, would not have been possible without the support of the General Delegation of the French Language (DGLF), of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MAE), of the Ministry of National Education and of the Intergovernmental Agency of the French-speaking part of the world.