PROMOTING MULTICULTURALISM IN PRIMARY SCHOOLS: PRE-SERVICE ENGLISH TEACHERS’ PERCEPTION ON PLURALISTIC TEACHING METHODS AND CROSS-LINGUISTIC AWARENESS IN CAMEROON
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Abstract
Cameroon, a multicultural and multilingual country, is the only African country where English and French as official languages, and a bilingual education system with distinctive curriculum. The aim of this study was to analyze and to evaluate Cameroon preservice teachers’ cognition about multilingualism and their perception of pluralistic approaches to English language teaching alongside the evaluation of their cross-linguistic awareness. The quantitative and qualitative data were collected with a two-section questionnaire administered to 35 Cameroon preservice English teachers. The first part of the questionnaire comprised both open and close ended questions, and the second part comprised of Likert scale survey with the Framework of References for Pluralistic Approaches to Language and Culture (FREPA). The results revealed that Cameroon preservice teachers supported the promotion of multilingualism in Cameroon and encouraged cross-linguistic awareness through the teaching of intelligible languages that liable to ease learning through plurilingual approaches. In conclusion, Cameroon preservice teachers seem to be more liable to practice integrated didactic approach to language teaching and learning to exploit the linguistic cognates of romance languages, to the detriment of the students’ native languages. Moreover, although Cameroon pre-service English teachers encouraged plurilingual teaching and learning, a limited cognition about its applicability was discovered. It was suggested that the Operational Research Programme for Language Education in Cameroon (PROPELCAM) encourages national languages’ integration to ensure a complementary-type approach to teaching and learning. In addition, educational stakeholders could offer seminars and conferences to educate preservice teachers towards the implementation of plurilingual approaches.
Keywords
Cameroon, cross-linguistics, English as a foreign language, multiculturalism, pre-service teachers.