The Influence of Mother Tongue among Kanuri learners of French

This piece of study has been written for Teachers of French as a Foreign Language (and, to some extent, for learners). It is not an attempt to present an introduction to phonetics, nor is it a book on methodology of French as a Foreign Language. It is rather an attempt to bridge the gap between the two, to show how knowledge of phonetics can contribute in improving French language teaching and learning quality and achievement. A great deal of research has been conducted so far pertaining to the difficulties in learning French. But to our knowledge none of them has ever examined the pattern, processes and problems of acquisition of oral French skills by native Kanuri speakers. During the oral French part of the West African Examination Council, it used to be observed that students face a lot of difficulties when communicating orally in French. They tend to mix phonemic rules from several languages. By so doing, they end up committing errors. This study deals with inappropriate phonemic production made by native Kanuri speakers among Form II of Senior Secondary School students learning French, proposing a phonemic approach to error analysis.