L’Approche communicative et enseignement/apprentissage du FLE dans le contexte plurilingue ghanéen. Regard sur trois manuels d’enseignement : Arc-en-ciel, Latitudes et Panorama

L’Approche communicative et enseignement/apprentissage du FLE dans le contexte plurilingue ghanéen. Regard sur trois manuels d’enseignement : Arc-en-ciel, Latitudes et Panorama

           

Nutakor Mawushi

Université du Ghana, Legon, Ghana

Agbéflé Koffi Ganyo

Université du Ghana, Legon, Ghana

Abstract

The importance that Ghanaians, leaders and people alike attribute to the learning of French is surprisingly high when one considers the apparent difficulty most people express vis-à-vis their experience of learning French as a Foreign language in school coupled with the poor results that pupils produce at all levels in the educational system.

This paper takes an analytical look at three popular teaching manuals of French as a Foreign Language in Ghana – Arc-en-Ciel, Latitudes and Panorama following the observation that these manuals are used in a multilingual environment whose impact on the teaching and learning of French is often neglected. Besides, most of the teaching methodologies applied in these manuals are frequently judged inappropriate for a better French teaching experience and it is therefore often the case that changes are instituted: direct method, active method, communicative method, etc. Despite this however the problems persist.

In this paper we therefore seek to go beyond the methodological issue in the FFL classes which as noted are beset with a worsening situation of failure, to examine the relationship between the content of the FFL manuals and the multilingual context in which they are used. Our study suggests that the typical manuals found in the Ghanaian school system are not at all adapted to the socio-cultural realities of the country, and worse, neither are they suited to the multilingual nature of Ghana. At best, these manuals are only suited for use in places where FFL is taught in a context with a Franco-European culture.

Keywords: teaching manuals, multilingual environment, teaching methodologies, communicative approach, FFL