SOURCE:

Faculty: Arts
Department: Modern European Languages

CONTRIBUTORS:

Ifezue, J. I.
Ezean, O. E.

ABSTRACT:

This work focuses on the acquisition of competence in the use of gender in French among igbophone university students. Our motivation is derived from the previous research works which are based on the difficulties of second language or foreign language learners of French in the mastery of grammatical gender (Tucker, Lambert et Rigault, 1977; Corbett, 1991). The use of this grammatical category is a difficult task among igbophone learners of French as a second or foreign language. In effect, this work has as an objective to examine the acquisition of gender among igbophone students in three different levels of study in Nigerian universities. We propose to determine the competence of igbophone students in French gender structure, laying emphasis on the strategies applied in the process of acquisition of grammatical gender in French. Our theoretical framework is based on the theory of Interlanguage propounded by Selinker as well as Schmidt’s Noticing hypothesis on the acquisition of grammatical structures of a foreign language. More so, our methodology is based on content analysis of written production of students from five universities in south-eastern Nigeria. The research was guided by five research questions. The questionnaire, three tests and retrospective interview were used to evaluate the grammatical competence of students in the use of gender in French as a foreign language in order to find answers to the subject of study. The data gathered were analyzed and results presented before the proposition of steps for overcoming the difficulties of gender in French.

KEYWORDS: Grammatical competence, French as a foreign language, grammatical gender, learning strategies.