Developing Phraseological Competence at University: Limitations of Current Teaching Practices in Algeria, Evidence from the Department of French at the University of El Oued

Abstract

Mastery of academic and scientific writing depends, among other factors, on phraseological competence, which is fundamental to discourse organisation, scientific reasoning, and academic argumentation. This study examines the implications of the lack of explicit phraseology instruction in Algerian university curricula through a qualitative analysis of the training programmes offered by the Department of French at the University of El Oued and a corpus of Algerian scientific articles published on the Algerian Scientific Journals Platform (ASJP). The findings reveal limited integration of phraseology into academic programmes despite its widespread occurrence in the scientific texts examined. The study thus highlights a gap between the demands of scientific writing and the content addressed in university teaching, underscoring the need to incorporate academic phraseology into higher education curricula to enhance students’ writing abilities and the quality of scientific output.