The English Speech of Francophone Primary School Teachers and <i>Cours Moyen Deux (CM2) </i> Pupils in Cameroon

Abstract

This paper examines the English spoken productions of primary school teachers and their graduating pupils in Cameroon, with the aim of checking how much English is learnt by the time the primary child moves to the secondary education level. The data came from classroom observations, tape-recording of lessons as they were taught and a spoken performance test taken by the pupils. The work is couched within the structural approach to phonology, and the error analysis and the contrastive methods of analysis were used to describe the data. A number of interesting findings were obtained. First, francophone primary school teachers in Cameroon are not proficient in English and they cannot therefore teach the subject even though they were summoned to do it. Second, many francophone primary school pupils learn very little English and, as a result, secondary school teachers have no choice but to start the English subject from scratch. Characteristically, these pupils' spoken productions exhibit various features at the level of consonants like substitution, cluster simplification and realisation of silent letters. At the vocalic level, spelling pronunciation causes monophthongs to be replaced by foreign sounds, and diphthongs and triphthongs to be monophthongised. Most interestingly, vowel nasalization is systematic in specific contexts.

When the Blind Lead the Blinds - Analysing the written English Productions of Francophone Primary School Teachers’ in Far-North Cameroon and the Need for Pedagogic Reforms

“…This cannot guarantee a good future for English in francophone schools in the Far North region. Kouega and Onana [16] proposed that, due to the lack of proficiency of francophone primary school teachers in English, they should not teach it as subject in primary schools even if they were summoned to do that. Training pupils to do what they are unable to do well will contribute in maintaining a chain of inefficiency in the process of teaching and learning.…”

“…These reasons according to some researchers include: the interference of their first official language or the interference of their mother tongue, lack of knowledge about the rules that govern the target language, and lack of input from teachers. However, following the investigation of Kouega and Onana [16], we realise that teachers play a critical role in the learning of second or foreign languages by learners. In this respect, the quality of the language that is used by teachers has to be known because it determines the efficiency of the input that students will receive from them.…”

“…By so doing, he/she will train 'twice non-proficient, makers of errors' than him/her. In this respect, Kouega and Onana [16] found out that 'Francophone primary school teachers in Cameroon are not proficient in English and they cannot therefore teach the subject even though they were summoned to do it.' Primary school pupils cannot expect much from these teachers who are lacking proficiency in basic elements of English language.…”

“…Some features originated from the influence of French pronunciation on English. Kouega and Onana [16] investigated on the pronunciation of teachers and their pupils of Cours Moyen Deux in order to sort out how much level in pronunciation has been acquired by the time they leave primary school. Their results uncover that many deficiencies are found at the level of sound rendition of students as well as teachers.…”