The teaching

of non-mother tongues
An educational psychology-based approach
geared to the educational context in multilingual
African countries

Linguapax Practical Guide No. 3

0 CIPA 1997
D/l 997l778913
Produced with the scientijic and technical assistance
of the UNESCO Chair in Linguistic Planning
and Language Teaching
of the University of Mans-Hainaut
and the UNESCO Centre of Catalonia

ED-98lWSi22
 PREFACE

LINGUAPAX is a UNESCO project aimed at promoting the culture of

peace through multilingual education at all levels, and ensuring respect
for linguistic diversity.

The objective of the project is to provide a specifically linguistic

response to the issues raised by the search for peace, the defence of
human rights and the promotion of a genuine form of education for
democracy.

In order to achieve this goal, LINGUAPAX seeks to identify new

foreign-language and mother-tongue curricula based on international
tolerance, understanding and solidarity, and to develop teaching
methods which incorporate the objectives of international cooperation
and solidarity and at the same time eliminate negative stereotypes and
prejudices. Teacher training and textbook design catering to these
objectives are decisive components of this strategy.

Initially, LINGUAPAX proposes to give priority to the following actions:

1. TO DEVELOP, on an experimental basis, new materials for foreign-

language courses which help to give pupils objective knowledge
of the salient aspects of the everyday life, culture, literature, folklore,
customs and habits of the countries where the languages in
question are spoken.

2. TO FACILITATE the inclusion of minority or lesser-used languages in

the language-planning components of the master plans addressing
the various types of situation in Member States where such action
has been decided.

3. TO SUPPORT the dissemination of effective foreign-language and

mother-tongue teaching methods with a view to strengthening
peaceful cooperation between communities, peoples and nations.

4. TO BIND LINGUAPAX firmly to the culture of peace, as part of

UNESCO’s efforts to develop the spirit of tolerance, defend the
cause of human rights, and promote education for democracy.

5. TO PREPARE a regularly updated descriptive and explanatory

linguistic atlas of the world with a view to safeguarding and
protecting living languages.

5
6. To PROMOTE a multilingual culture by helping States to renovate
their language-planning criteria and provide educators and
teachers with suitable teaching tools.

7. To PARTICIPATE, at the request of Member States, in the drafting of

legal measures relating to linguistic rights.

8. To TAKE ACTION, as a matter of priority, in pre- and/or post-conflict

situations.

9. To INCLUDE the defence of minority or lesser-used languages in

the promotion of foreign languages in general.

10. TO HELP teachers to make use of advances in psycholinguistics to

ensure that poor quality teaching does not lead to rejection of the
foreign language itself, and hence of the culture it represents,
which would be contrary to the spirit of LINGUAPAX.

11. To TAKE INTO ACCOUNT language-teaching theory, which recom-

mends that separate methodologies should be used for foreign-
language teaching and mother-tongue training.

12. To EXTEND the LINGUAPAX philosophy to the teaching of the

social sciences in general in education systems.

13. TO MAKE SYSTEMATIC EFFORTS to bring about convergence and

coordination at the theoretical and practical levels in the teaching
of the mother tongue and a foreign language, without distorting
the linguistic facts of either language.

All of these objectives are inspired by the evident concern to link

language teaching to UNESCO’s ethical requirements and basic
guidelines for a culture of peace.

The present guide relates more particularly to the actions mentioned

in points 3, 10 and Il.

For it is a fact that failure in foreign language learning generally

fosters negative attitudes to those languages, to their underlying
cultures, and to those who speak them and for whom they constitute
the original means of expression and communication. An inappropriate
methodological approach is thus liable to generate behaviour in the
learner which is the opposite of what the LINGUAPAX objectives seek
to promote.

6
 That is why those in charge of the LINGUAPA>( project devote
considerable thought to the methodology of second- language teaching,
several applications of which are proposed in the present guide.
THE PROBLEMS

One of the most pertinent criticisms that have been made of foreign-
language teaching in Africa for the last ten years is that the learner and
his original language experience are not taken into account.

At best, the foreign language is actually taught as a target language.

Although learning sequences, the spreading out over time of learning
and the definition of subject matter are structured around the inner
dynamics of the language, i.e. around how it functions specifically, no
account is taken, as a rule, of the mother-tongue substratum.

This purely didactic concept with its narrow disciplinary approach

subordinates any teaching measures to the sole consideration of
linguistic phenomena characterizing the language to be learnt.

Apart from the necessary changes concerning situation and

motivation, methods designed along these lines can be used anywhere
in the world and are not linked to any particular prior or simultaneous
language reference.

This didactic approach is inadequate and simplistic, because it

denies the overall reality of language-learning processes. The authors
of language-teaching curricula and textbooks and those who train
teachers in this field must bear in mind that when a child is learning or
improving a second language in Africa, in countries where Creole is
spoken and in Asia or elsewhere, he generally already has a command
of one or even several local languages. This common-sense observ-
ation naturally necessitates the implementation of new methodological
guidelines.

For teachers cannot continue ad infinitum to act as though pupils

had never had any contact with other languages; in the designing of
foreign-language curricula, textbooks and teaching methods, efforts
must be made to promote the adoption of an educational psychology-
based approach, which focuses on the learner himself, in order to
complement the oversimplistic didactic approach which focuses
exclusively on the “subject”.

The linguistic experience of learners is particularly rich in many

multilingual countries, and particularly in Africa. The following are three
real cases - among many - which illustrate, better than any statistics
could do, the complexity of the language situations which are to be
found in the region.

9
Case 1: Schoolteacher S.B.

1. Father’s language: Gbaya.

2. Mother’s language: Zande.
3. Language of early childhood: Zande - father employed in a
civil service post in Obo (Zande-speaking area).
4. Father posted to Sibut. Language commonly spoken: Sango.
5. Language of literacy in which he learned to read and write
from age 6 onwards: French.
6. Primary- and secondary-school language: French.
7. From 3rd form onwards S.B. learned Russian at intermediate
school in Sibut.

S.B.‘s language profile:

1st language: Zande

2nd language: Sango
3rd language: French
4th language: Russian.

Problems raised:

What are S.B.‘s communicative behaviour patterns? In other words,

what are the conscious or subconscious, objective or subjective criteria
which determine how S.B. chooses to use a particular language (code)
in a given communication situation (where, when, how, why, with whom,
to whom, etc.)?

Can the rules, or at least the constants, of S.B.‘s code switching be

determined?

Can significant criteria be established affecting S.B.‘s code switching

(the nature of the conversation, with or without witnesses, the social
status and emotional state of the interlocutor, the venue and environ-
ment of the conversation, etc.)?

Case 2: Schoolteacher A.K.

1. Father’s language: Banda.

2. Mother’s language: Banda.
3. Language of early childhood: Banda.

10
 4. Father, a forest ranger, was posted to Kaga Bandoro. Language
habitually spoken by A.K. outside his family: Mandjia.
5. Language in which he learned to read and write and which he
used at school: French.
6. During his schooling he learned Sango, with which he had
been in contact intermittently from infancy.
7. Secondary education at the lycee in Bossangoa, where his
uncle looked after him. Contact with Gbaya. Studied English
and Russian.
8. After his training course at the teachers’ training college in
Bangui, A.K. was posted to Birao, which is situated in an
Arabic-speaking area.

Problems raised:

A.K. is fluent in four languages (Banda, Mandjia, French, Sango) and

has fairly thorough knowledge of a further four (Gbaya, English,
Russian, Arabic). Where does he stand with respect to the intersection
of these various linguistic and cognitive worlds? Can one determine the
functional fields of each of the languages used? In other words, are
there comparative behaviour patterns -

Banda > Sango

Sango > Banda
Sango > French
French > Sango, etc.?

In what areas is there interference, or even competition?

Case 3: Future Schoolteacher T.D.

1. Father’s language: Moore.

2. Mother’s language: Bobo.
3. Language of early childhood: Bobo - father employed in a civil
service post in Bobo-Dioulasso.
4. Father posted to Ouagadougou. Language of habitual usage:
Moore.
5. Language in which he learned to read and write from age
7 onwards: French.
6. Primary- and secondary-school language: French.
7. T.D. learned English at secondary school from 3rd form
onwards.

11
T.D.‘s language profile:

1st language: Bobo

2nd language: Moore
3rd language: French
4th language: English.

Question: What are the social, family and vocational parameters which
determine T.D.‘s choice of language for communication?

***

As can be seen, it is not only primary-school children who integrate de

facto bilingualism or multilingualism into their linguistic abilities. The
situational complexity and the interaction of the various linguistic
influences also play a role at secondary-school /eve/ - a fact which
cannot be denied by any methodologists in the foreign language
teaching field who are anxious to base teaching on pupils’ real needs.

To disregard acquired language skills, to refuse to take account of

linguistic habits, to discard the “linguistic personality” of the learner, to
erase previous knowledge and that acquired simultaneously in the
learning process is not a sound approach from the methodological or
psychological point of view. Sooner or later, blindness of this sort may
damage the very status of the foreign language, its implantation in the
community and its expansion in the education system.

How can one take account of the specific profiles of pupils, of their
overall experience, in practical terms, in order to improve, facilitate and
accelerate their command of the target language?

Approaches which may help to draw on learners’ linguistic and

cultural experience can be listed roughly under four headings:

K the contrastive approach

R the communicative approach
R the integrative approach
3 the participatory approach.

Since the first two types of approach are relatively well known, we
shall discuss them briefly, devoting more extensive explanations to the
later two approaches, which are less frequently employed. A concrete
example based on the realities of the African situation will be presented
for each of the four aspects.

12
THE CONTRASTWE APPROACH

This is not a new idea - it gave rise to great hopes some 20 years ago.
However, the concrete pedagogical applications of this approach in
second-language classes have been cautious, except in the field of
corrective phonetics. The verbo-tonal phonetic correction method
(developed and refined in particular by Professor Raymond RENARD
and his collaborators in MONS) constitutes a spectacular advance in
the field, even if this method is little known or used in actual practice
due to the inadequacy of training programmes.

What does the contrastive approach applied to the teaching of a

foreign language consist in? For the educationist, it is a question of
starting out from what is common to both systems, that of the familiar
language and that of the target language, of proceeding from what is
known to what is not known, from what is easy to what is difficult,
and only then moving on to teach those aspects which are clearly
and irreducibly different. The problem of interference, albeit very real,
must not be unduly magnified. Habits connected with the first language
can prove beneficial when they make it easier to master the foreign
language through the interplay of parallelisms. They are only negative
for the teacher when the differences in organization between the
two systems make it more difficult and complicated to learn the new
language. In the first case, the teacher can rely on the similarities
between the two languages and thus promote transfers from one
language to the other. In the second case, he will have to be vigilant and
take care to reduce instances of interference. The contrastive method
thus in fact helps to spread out levels of learning and difficulty over time.

The contrastive approach is relatively easy to systematize

as far as sounds are concerned, since the system is “closed”. It is
more difficult to put into practice when it comes to the more complex
issue of grammatical structures, and it has still to be defined at the
lexical level, where the system is constantly evolving and is more “open”.

Several experiments relating to the contrastive approach have been

attempted in the field, but the evaluations of which we are aware only
concern very specific issues.

On the following page we set out a concrete example of transfer,

which is used to facilitate the learning of interrogative structures in a
contrastive approach. It has been applied to a French lesson for Fulani
children whose first language is Fulfulde. Note the remarkable similarity
in the syntactic constructions, which the teacher can use to advantage

13
in order to accelerate and facilitate the learning of the corresponding
structure in French.

The opposite progression (from French to Fulfulde) is also possible.

The exercise, in which a drawing is used as a motivation and

memory aid, is an excellent device for illustrating the syntactic
organization of the various elements in the interrogative sentence.

14
 .

I+
I- 4
alam
R

l- a yahan stnima
l- YOU are going to the cinema on Sunday?

.
R-
2- I Sinima 1
? I 1

2- ydla a yahan sinima alam na?

2- Yes/no? you are going to the cinema on Sunday?

.
3-

3-
?

Ydh
R- a yahan alam sinima “a?
3- Yes/no? you are going on Sunday to the cinema?

R-
4- / Slnlma I
?

4- Yt4lt3 dam a yaha” sinima na?

4- Yes/no? on Sunday you are going to the cinema?

.
5-

5
El
4
alam
?

y&3
R- ada yaha Sinima na?
alam

.xx-
.
5- on Sunday Yeslno? you are going to the cinema?

6- ) Sinima I
?

6- yalla on “jahan alam sinima na?

6- Yes/no? you are going on Sunday to the cinema

..
7-

7-
?

yalla
lx- ibe njaha
/pnqm!
1 Lekkol

lekkol
1

alkamusa na?
7. they go to school on Thursdays?

Table taken from POTH, J., National languages and teacher training, Methodological Guide
No. 3, UNESCO, PARIS, 1987.

15
THE COMMUNICATIVE APPROACH

Whereas the contrastive approach is still to a large extent experimental -

with the exception of its applications in corrective phonetics - and its
use is fragmented, focusing only on points which have been reliably
authenticated, the communicative approach has been operational for
many years.

With this approach, the aim is to place the pupils in a com-

munication situation, to motivate them to express themselves and
to create foreign-language communication reflexes. They are given
the following instruction: “Attend to the message first and fore-
most. The form will be improved upon afterwards, if necessary.” In
order to motivate the student to communicate, his personal
involvement in the conversation must of course be facilitated. He
needs to have “something to say” and to want to say it. How is that
to be achieved if the language teacher does not know what the
learner is interested in?

It is by identifying the subjects which interest the learners that

language needs can be defined with a view to achieving natural
and authentic communication (see Appendix I). However, the table
presented in that appendix is but one example. Communication motives
differ according to age, milieu, season, etc. It is the duty of every foreign
language teacher to keep constantly in touch with the classes entrusted
to him.

The following is an illustration of how this communicative approach,

which is based on the desire to express oneself and to explain, is
applied. The example takes the form of an analysis of how a trap
commonly built by pupils in the suburbs of Bangui (Central African
Republic) works.

This example shows in practical terms how the approach based on

motivation to communicate provides a means of presenting specialized
technical vocabulary to pupils and enabling them to acquire it in a
communication situation.

Use of the mother tongue - which pupils are of course tempted to

resort to - is not allowed. A diagram of the trap and a passage from the
teacher’s book are set out below:

16
 Squirrel Trap
wire I known as a “rat trap”

thorny bushes
*obstructing passage
from either side

-branch serving as
a trigger mechanism
as the animal goes
through

loose bin&g
(allowing the trigger mechanism
to pivot around the fixed stake)

How it works: The animal meets the trigger branch on its path and
pushes it to get past. The branch pivots and the back end displaces
the pin which is supporting the peg. Having lost its support, the peg
lets the heavy stone drop, and the stone crushes the animal.

Questions asked by the teacher:’

Q: Is the trap laid just anywhere?

A: No. It’s laid on the animal’s usual path.
Q: Why are the thorny bushes placed on both sides of the trap?
A: So that the animal has no way of bypassing the trap.
Q: What is the exact role of each element in the set-up for
ensuring that the trap works properly?
A: The animal meets the trigger branch on its path and pushes it
to get past. / Under this pressure, the trigger branch pivots
around a stake (which is sunk in the ground) to which it is
attached with a loose cord. / This pivoting movement has the
effect of pushing part A of the trigger branch forward and
part B of the same branch back. / When pushed back, part B
of the branch in turn displaces a pin, which is supporting the
peg. Having thus lost its support, this peg is suddenly drawn
upwards due to the weight of the heavy stone to which it is
connected by a wire. / The full weight of the stone falls on the
animal, which is immobilized and suffocates.

1. The words in italics are the new vocabulary to be understood and acquired.

17
 By the end of the vocabulary and oral expression lesson the pupils
must be able to identify and name each of the technical elements of
the trap (stake, peg, binding, loose, pin, trigger mechanism) and to
transfer them to other situations. The functional characteristics of each
element must have been understood at the theoretical level.

Naturally, this type of exercise will not be an isolated case. It is

essential that it should be part of a planned sequence of vocabulary
acquisition and revision of basic intuitive knowledge (temporal
relativity, space-time relationship, relationships of cause and effect,
etc.). This vocabulary, which is all too often presented in an abstract
manner in artificial situations or situations presenting little motivation,
will be learnt easily and in depth if the teacher seeks natural
and authentic motivation, as in the above example, which is based
on a socio-affective approach which promotes and stimulates
communication.

THE INTEGRATIVE APPROACH

This approach is much debated but rarely applied in actual practice. It

involves introducing not only pupils’ original linguistic skills but also their
cultural experience directly into the content of foreign-language
classes so that that experience is reinvested and transferred within
classroom teaching situations. The teaching of a second language is
thus rooted directly in the realities of the user’s environment. It can no
longer be criticized for cutting pupils off from their culture and giving rise
to new needs which cannot be met. Furthermore, the teaching of a
foreign language such as French, English or Portuguese in Africa will
gain moral legitimacy in addition to the historical legitimacy which is
sometimes contested and seen as suspect.

The following is an example of a lesson which draws on the playing

habits of learners in Sahel regions. In the case in hand, the teacher
bases the lesson on a traditional game well known to the children. It is
a game which can be played using picture labels on a felt board or
drawings on a blackboard.

The teacher strengthens the pupils’ motivation by starting off in the

local language (this is a game from Fulani culture). He then switches to
the foreign language using the same rules and the same methods.

18
 The game presented below is a grammar game relating to
command of the use of categories of nouns. It is played out of doors (in
the playground, for example). The team leader addresses one of his
team mates and says :

“Riiw / ndi!”
“Chase / him!”

The information provided by the pronoun “ndi” is of course fairly

vague, but the grammatical system in Fulani requires this pronoun to be
used exclusively for an adult male animal. On the basis of the
information provided by this pronoun alone, the player addressed must
thus guess the meaning of the order he has received (i.e. he must prove
that he knows which category of nouns the pronoun refers to) and carry
out the order appropriately. Depending on the environment in which the
game is played, he will have to chase a bull or a billy goat or a ram, etc.
away from the group - rather than a she-goat or a hen, which would
inevitably provoke the general hilarity and mockery of the whole class.

The game is continued with different variants:

- Riiw! - nga (a she-goat, a she-ass)

- Chase! - kol (a young ewe, a female kid)
- Waddu! - nge (a cow)
- Bring! - ngal (a hen, etc.)

“Nga”, “kol”, “nge”, “ngal”, etc. are classifying pronouns like “ndi”.
The player demonstrates his grammatical skill by interpreting each of
these orders correctly thus showing that he knows which category of
nouns the pronoun refers to.

It is then very easy to transfer the exercise to a lesson on English

pronouns, for example (chase it, chase him, chase her, chase them),
and the same applies to demonstrative, possessive or interrogative
pronouns, and so on.

With a little bit of imagination, by drawing on the cultural back-

ground and experience of the learners the teacher can conduct grammar
lessons in the target language which the class will enjoy. All teachers
know that these grammar lessons generally have little effect when
conducted in the classical manner because they are disliked and poorly
regarded by young pupils, who reject the approach because they find it
too abstract.

19
 To conclude this section, I would add that in African cultures there is
an abundant variety of language games and games based on
pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, arithmetic and so on. It can
only be of advantage to integrate such games into the methodology of
learning or improving a second language. Such a theoretical orientation
would help to enhance the status of the pupils’ own cultural back-
ground, whose components are generally excluded from curricula.
Furthermore, teaching methods which have been revitalized in depth by
taking account of learners’ experience will find their substance in local
or national realities rather than in textbooks which have been written
elsewhere and are designed on very general outlines so as to meet the
requirements of large editions.

THE PARTICIPATORY APPROACH

Just as certain mother tongues - in their present state of development -

are sometimes ill-equipped to cope with realities which have been
imported and ways of thinking which have been developed in other
cultures over time (in the realms of philosophy, mathematics, science,
etc.), a foreign language likewise proves inadequate when it comes to
translating the full range of human experience as perceived in
communities which have developed their own world views expressed in
their own original languages. Of course, a// the languages in the world
are potentially able to render human experience in its entirety, but they
need to be called upon to do so. This requires time and effort, as well as
a certain amount of political will.

The fact that English, French, Portuguese or German, for instance

are inadequate for translating certain realities of everyday life specific to
the African environment is obvious and can easily be illustrated. Thus, in
Fulfulde (in the region of Djibo, in north-western Burkina Faso), the
general activity of tending herds is subdivided into nuances of meaning
which are expressed with a subtlety and precision that a European
language, or even some other African language than the language in
question, can only achieve with lengthy paraphrases:

Expression in Fulfulde - Paraphrase in English

= mi durowi - I am leaving the village with the herd to go

to the grazing ground.

20
 = mi oori - I have just left with the herd to go to the
grazing ground.
= mi weetowi - I graze the herd from morning until midday.
= mi yutini - I bring the herd back to the village around
midday.
= mi oorti - I have just left for the grazing ground with
the herd for the second time today.
= mi winyowi - I graze the herd in the afternoon (from
midday until evening).
= mi jaanyi - I bring the herd back to the village at
sunset.
= mi hoornowi - I mind the herd for more than a day before
taking it to the well or the watering hole
(36 hours or more).
= mi hortini - I lead the herd to the well or the watering
hole to water it after minding it for more
than a day.
= mi jurni - I lead the herd to the drinking trough (time
not specified).
= mi eggi - I leave the grazing ground to move on to
other pastures.
= mi getti - I am in the process of transhumance (used
for the period of movement to other
pastures).
= mi hofi - I have arrived at my destination and I am
settling on the grazing ground with the
herd.
= mi moonowi - I lead the herd to the salt marshes.
= mi hottii - Having changed pastures I take the herd
back to the first pastures.

We have noted a further 10 expressions of this type referring simply

to the idea of tending. There is no need to quote them all since it will
already be clear that Fulfulde - like any other language within its own
particular context - has fully developed those registers that correspond
to its specific needs in its own environment, and that no other language
in the world can match it in this specific regard.

In order for the non-mother tongue which is taught (which often has
the status of an official language such as French, English or Portuguese
in many African countries) to become truly a language of com-
munication in the pupils’ everyday life, the words of that language must
conjure up images which are familiar to young people, and relate to their
personal effects and the cares and pleasures of their daily lives.

21
 Teachers and the textbooks they use or recommend must take
account of the students’ sociocultural environment and the
“alternative school” that is constituted by the street, the radio,
extramural activities, etc. If the school refuses to open up linguistically
to the living, ever-changing working environment outside, it is likely to
embark upon a process of “latinization” (already well under way in
some countries), in which the foreign language no longer really exists
outside the classroom. To make that language a real tool for
communication, to make it available to as wide a public as possible,
to “democratize” it in real terms, rather than “protecting” it with
dogmatic and sterile orthodoxy it must be allowed to live, and African
speakers must be allowed to adapt it according to their own
creative genius so that they can convey their affective or cognitive
message in all its authenticity and specificity without distortion or
impoverishment.

Naturally, the aim should not be to acquiesce in a harmful and

eventually destructive attitude of “anything goes” but rather to enlist the
active participation of all populations - French-speaking, English-
speaking, Portuguese-speaking, Spanish-speaking, etc. - in the
enrichment and dynamic development of the non-native languages
they use in addition to their mother tongues, and to do so within
the framework of clearly defined tolerances. To put it more bluntly,
innovation in French or English is not the sole prerogative of Parisians
and Londoners!

Innovation and adaptation are necessary to enable the non-mother

tongues taught in African curricula effectively to play a dynamic role in
the communication strategies of African pupils. An example taken from
the Nuni language (Burkina Faso) illustrates the complexity of the
problem. It would in fact be very difficult to conduct a lesson on the
subject of “grass” in a foreign language. Nuni has six different words
for grass, and if such a lesson were to be given in French (or English)
only, the generic term “grass” would be quite inadequate. The teacher
and the pupils would have to invent ways and means of expressing
these nuances of meaning in order to be able to communicate and
understand each other!

This participation of the whole class (both teachers and pupils) in

the elimination of a situation of inadequacy should thus take place on
the basis of standards and tolerances which have still to be defined by
the competent national academies or institutions (provided, naturally,
that the principle of such participation is actually accepted!).

22
 The idea that teachers, textbooks and curricula should be more
open to a form of language teaching which is closer to the affective,
psychological and economic realities of the local environment does
not apply to vocabulary alone. Thought needs to be devoted to the
actual process of ideation. In French composition, for example, and,
later on, in dissertations, why not accept to a certain extent a narrative
or explanatory rhythm which is close to oral presentation (in Africa in
particular) instead of imposing a typically Cartesian approach based on
thesis, antithesis and synthesis on pupils and students? Are categories
of logic really so universal? To claim that they are and that only the
schools of thought recognized by the Western world are valid, while
all other forms of reasoning are null and void, is utter - and shocking -
ethnocentricity!

23
 Relative status
Communication Interlocutor Preferred language of the available Utilisation coefficient of
context the preferred language
languages
Relatives mt mtxrbfl 65%
Uneducated friend mt mtxl mm
-- ,-
INTHI-““’ *--
’ “ILLHbt 1 Educated friend I fl I flzmtxrl I 55% I
1 Neighbouring family mt mt>ul 80%

I fl>Ul 85%

I
fl>Ul 70%
fl>Ul 90%
Ul>fl 95%
fl>Ul 95%
--i
I I Student whom the subiect knows 1 UI I Ul>fl I 60% I
u National trader UI ul>fl>mt 90%
African trader UI Ul>fl 80%
2 AT THE MARKET fl>Ul 70%
Non-European foreign fl
E trader
E National doctor
AT THE HOSPITAL 100%
.- C:C)MMI
AT THF -- .._....
INID European doctor I iI I I 100% I
CLINIC National nurse fl fl>Ul 60%
Teacher (nat./European) fl 100%
AT THE TEACHERS’ Secretary :I fl>Ul 80%
TRAINING COLLEGE College students (in a group) fl>Ul 90%
College student (on his own) iI fl>Ul 60%
IN THE INSPECTOR’S Inspector fl fl 100%
OFFICE Orderly I UI I Ul>fl I 90% I
Ministry official 100%
IN ANY OFFICE Ticket office official II ff 90%
Counter clerk (bank) fl fl>Ul 55%
WITH A FEMALE Request for information mt mt>flxl 85%
STUDENT FROM THE or greeting
SAME ETHNIC GROUP Conversation with girlfriend mt mt>ul>fl
WITH A FEMALE
Request for information fl fl>Ul 60%
STUDENT FROM or greeting
A DIFFERENT Conversation with girlfriend fl fl>Ul
ETHNIC GROUP 55%
 The main interest of the table on the previous page is that it provides
very concrete information on the languages which a representative
sample of teachers and future teachers choose spontaneously as part
of their individual communication strategies. (Taken from POTH, J.,
National languages and teacher training in Africa, Methodological Guide
No. 2, Education surveys and documents No. 47, UNESCO, 1984.)

The survey, which covered 400 schoolteachers and future

schoolteachers (with secondary-school or primary-school diplomas)
was conducted in Bangui from 1975 to 1979. It covers the instances
of communication in which schoolteachers and future schoolteachers
take the initiative to communicate, i.e. when they speak first. The
abbreviations in the table read as follows:

mt = mother tongue
ul = vernacular language (Sango)
fl = foreign language (French).

The utilization coefficients expressed in percentages refer only to

the dominant language in a given communication situation. Thus, in the
first situation, “mt>ul>fl : 65%” means that 65% of the persons included
in the survey prefer to use the mother tongue (mt) then the vernacular
language (ul) and then the foreign language (fl) in the same situation.
(The exact percentages for the two less favoured languages have not
been calculated.)

Thus, the information

“IN THE VILLAGE / Educated friend / fl / fl>mt>ul / 55%” must be

read as follows:

Whenever the schoolteachers and future schoolteachers meet an

educated friend in the village, most of them (55%) use French (fl)
spontaneously; the remaining minority (45%) prefer to use the mother
tongue (mt) and, to a lesser extent, Sango (ul).

2.5
 APPENDIX II

MOTHER TONGUE, FOREIGN LANGUAGE,

PARENTAL LANGUAGE, ETHNIC LANGUAGE, etc.

It is important to make a clear distinction between the various terms

referring to the languages used for teaching in an educational or
multilingual context. There are at least two good reasons for this:

- At the pedagogical /eve/, each term indicates a methodological

hypothesis based on the child’s particular relationship with the
language. The methods used for teaching a mother tongue will be
different from those used for teaching a foreign language. Specific
procedures must be used in each case, with regard to both introductory
and higher-level courses.

- It is practically impossible for teacher trainers to give their

students proper initial and further training in language teaching unless
they themselves comprehend the meaning of these various expres-
sions, which are standard, systematic usage in all works and articles on
language teaching.

The next page contains a synoptic table, which is aimed at reducing

conceptual and terminological confusion.

26
 Summary table
Key:

: automatic link
--_____-_____-____
: possible Iink

-{ )- : no possible link

\/ r-7
foreign
h3

0 0
parents’ second
h3 In9

/-

first Ing
or
p

0
-
vernacular
IN Ing of

IO
literacy

27