Abstract:
Abstract Teaching and learning of French as a foreign language in any Anglophone country such as Ghana is an extremely difficult task to undertake both on the part of the teacher and the student. This is evidenced in the general low performance of students in the subject at the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) level in both public and private schools over the years. This case study paper follows, examines, and documents evidence (in a day) of an exemplary French teacher, Pangloss who, by dint of hard work, has brought tremendous success to his students. This article critically analyzes the difference and excellence he brings unto the teaching and learning of French even as a part-time teacher in a public Junior High School (JHS) in the Muzumba community within the Cape Zone Metropolis. The paper’s preoccupation is to typically observe the characteristics of this individual foreign language teacher with a view to probing deeply and analyzing intensively the multifarious phenomena that constitute his professional demeanor, the processes he employs in teaching, and the opportunities he creates for student learning purposely to establish some insights on how teaching and learning of French could be made better to the wider French teacher population in Ghana.
Machine summary:
Excellence in the Foreign Language Classroom: Escapades of a junior high school French teacher Anthony Akwesi Owusu, Principal Research Assistant, College of Education Studies, DASSE, University of Cape Coast, Ghana anthony.
This article critically analyzes the difference and excellence he brings unto the teaching and learning of French even as a part-time teacher in a public Junior High School (JHS) in the Muzumba community within the Cape Zone Metropolis.
The paper’s preoccupation is to typically observe the characteristics of this individual foreign language teacher with a view to probing deeply and analyzing intensively the multifarious phenomena that constitute his professional demeanor, the processes he employs in teaching, and the opportunities he creates for student learning purposely to establish some insights on how teaching and learning of French could be made better to the wider French teacher population in Ghana.
The White Paper on the Education Reform Review Committee’s findings which became more or less the policy framework on the teaching of French stated among other things that: It’s also well established that an early and routine acquaintance with second, third and fourth language confers on children great advantages in their life-long proficiency in those languages… the facts of geography impose on Ghana a necessity to promote among wide segments of the commercial and financial sector’s workforce a proficiency in the French language; Being an English-speaking country is also a source of considerable competitive advantage in international economic and political relations which Ghana needs to build upon.
In order to provide the requisite quality of language teachers, the Embassy supports French students learning at higher education levels either abroad or within the country.
, 2007; Richards & Rodgers, 2001; Zeichner & Noffke, 2001).