Fifty Years of the Teaching/Learning of French as a Foreign Language in Kenya: Challenges for Teachers and Learners
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Date
2013
Authors
Chokah, M.M.
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Contemporary Research Center
Abstract
Innovation in classroom practices is the engine that drives the process of language learning. In the
fifty years that French has been taught in Kenya, there has been a proliferation of methods and
approaches, from the traditional to the action based approach which reaffirms and consolidates the
communicative approach. This article seeks to give a historical perspective of the teaching of
French in Kenya: its expansion, challenges faced by both learners and teachers. In spite of the
remarkable expansion (from less than ten schools in 1964 to about 400 in 2012), the planning for
French within the school curriculum has been done with no proper policy resulting in no
substantial time being allocated to its learning activities. The fact that it was introduced into a
linguistically crowded context was never given the attention it deserved, more so after the change in
the education system in 1985. The entire exercise of planning seems to have been left in the hands of
the teacher who must find a way of getting through the content in the time given, at the expense of
communicative competence on the part of the learners. Taking into account that the same teacher
may not have had sufficient training in classroom practices, it is no wonder that even in the
presence of so many new tools, many challenges persist.
Description
Research Article
Keywords
Methods, Approaches, Communicative approach, Teaching strategies, Learning strategies, Language policy, Foreign language
Citation
International Journal of Education and Research, Vol. 1 No. 3; 2013