The Teaching of English to French-Speaking Cameroonian Learners : A Phonological Appraisal

This work is a sociophonetic investigation of the teaching of English to French-speaking Cameroonian learners at the secondary level of education in Cameroon. This research endeavour was motivated by the observation that, after seven good years of learning English at the secondary level of education, based on a syllabus which, with regards to its general objectives, is rich, most French-speaking Cameroonian learners of English still perform very poorly orally in English in real-life situations. Their speech is generally full of phonological errors that pose problems of intelligibility, as the speech of some of them is often characterized by deviant features that are conditioned by their native language, educational background, personal temperament, and, above all, their French background. Contrary to the first researchers who attributed learners' poor oral performance to social, linguistic and psychological factors, the researcher suspected one pedagogical factor: the negligence of phonological aspects in the school curriculum. To him, students' poor oral performance stems from the fact that phonology, which acts as a springboard to effective communication is totally downplayed.