TEACHING FRENCH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE IN BOTSWANA JUNIOR SECONDARY SCHOOLS: PROGRESS, CHALLENGES AND PROSPECTS

Abstract

This paper aims to examine the teaching and learning of French as a foreign language in Botswana’s Junior Secondary schools since its inception in 2001 through an evaluation of progress made and the challenges faced so far. The paper thoroughly studies the objectives of teaching French in Botswana, the type of training received by teachers as well as the correlation between teacher action and learners’ performance. This is done through the use of classroom action video observations and interviews of eight in-service teachers and four student teachers of French in Junior Secondary schools. Documents related to the teaching and learning of French are also analysed. Findings obtained from classroom observations reveal that, despite the progress achieved in the area of teacher training and professional development, the main objective of teaching French, which is the development of learner’s communicative competence, and its implementation do not correlate. There is as a result need to discard the generalist approach to teaching, learning and teacher training and adopt a contextualized approach, in order to reinforce the relevance of French language teaching to developing globally competitive citizens in Botswana.