INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OFTHE SOCIOLOGY OF LANGUAGE

Transcription

1 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OFTHE SOCIOLOGY OF LANGUAGE General Editor JOSHUA A. FISHMAN Offprint Mouton de Gruyter Berlin NewYork \ \

2 Book review Moussa Chami: L'Enseignement du Franfais au Maroc: Diagnostic des Difficultés et Implications Didactiques. Casablanca: Imprimerie Najah El Jadida, pp. (including tables). The longstanding French colonial policy to promote the French language and culture in the Moroccan society has led to a firm establishment of French in vital sectors such as administration and education. In the latter, French became the sole medium of instruction for ali subjects while Arabic was relegated to the teaching of lslamic studies. Shortly after Morocco's political independence, the restoration of the Arabic language became one of the essential components in the political program of the first government and was soon to be seen in the policy of Arabization, which, in education, aimed at replacing French with Arabic at school. However, this policy was hampered by many obstacles, namely the shortage of teachers, the lack of trained personnel, and the absence of teaching resources. Furthermore, the school population was fast growing, and classroom overcrowding became a major concern. These factors were seen as a direct cause of the falling standards in the French Ianguage, which, although considered a foreign language, still played an important role in Moroccan society, especially for gaining access to the job market. Against this background, the book under review is an examination of the language problems encountered by Moroccan pupils in learning French. In this empirical study, the author, himself a Moroccan scholar, analyzes a large corpus of errors made by secondary school Arabic native speakers. The major purpose is to identify those linguistic areas that cause serious learning difficulties in written French and necessitate immediate attention from teachers for more adequate teaching of the French Ianguage in Morocco (p. 10). As a whole, the book contains six chapters, each of which is divided into various sections. There is also a brief introduction and a conclusion /95/ O Walter de Gruyter Int'l. J. Soc. Lang. 112 (1995), pp

3 114 Book review IJSL 112 In the first chapter (pp ), Chami gives a general account of the linguistic situation in Morocco and explores the element of contact and conflict, both linguistic and cultural, between the languages used in the country. Chapter two (pp ), deals with the structure of the Moroccan education system and the teaching of French in the so-called public bilingual schools. Chapters 3 (pp ) and 4 (pp ) focus on the objectives of the study and the issues pertaining to the research question and methodology. The results of the investigation are finally presented and analyzed in chapter 5 (pp ) and are later discussed in more detail in chapter 6 (pp ). This also includes a section on pedagogical implications of the findings. In all these chapters, Chami presents a good case for the investigation of the language difficulties confronted by secondary school bilingual learners. Over recent years, there has been an increasing dissatisfaction with pupils' general performance in French, but no attempt has been made to look scientifically at the nature of this decline. In the present study, errors analysis is not seen in isolation from other social and cultural factors. Thus, from the outset (chapters 1 and 2), the author embarks on a description of Morocco's sociolinguistic profile, exploring the intricate background of what he calls the "linguistic issue." In the section on the historical development of the languages presently used in Morocco, he argues that the arrival of the Arabs by the end of the seventh century to a Berber-inhabited land and the French colonization in the early part of this century had a great social and economic impact on Morocco and have modified the linguistic structure of the country, where many languages carne into contact and are currently in perpetua! conflict (p. 14). This linguistic antagonism exists between Modern Arabic and French, the two prestigious languages. Modern Arabic is the national and official language of the country and, only recently, the sole rnediurn of instruction for primary and secondary schooling. French, on the other hand, is still used for teaching science and technology in higher education and continues to occupy a rnajor role in sorne of the vital sectors such as banking and commerce and in rnany sections of the Moroccan administration. A few sharp observations are also made concerning sorne realities of the language situation. For instance, the author rnakes no secret of the fact that Moroccan Arabic and Berber are the only mother tongues of Moroccans, and that Modern Arabic has no native speakers, which is not always accepted in sorne traditional circles. Although native Berber speakers are excluded frorn the investigation, the Berber issue is adequately dealt with in the first chapter. Lacking prestige and a standardized alphabet, neither Berber nor Moroccan

4 Book review JJSL Arabic is included in the current language policy. Berber speakers have to make the effort to leam, first of ali, Moroccan Arabic in order to participate in the daily activities of the community, and later Modero Arabic at school, where they are introduced to the writing system. Berber Arabic bilingualism is thus exclusive to Berber speakers. However, one striking omission in this chapter is the use of Spanish in the northem part of the country. The influence of this language, which is clearly evident in the local dialect, is hardly adequately discussed considering that two of the six regions from which the sample is taken are previous Spanish colonies. Also, the phenomenon of diglossia is only implicitly referred to in relation to the role of Arabic in Morocco. With regard to the Arabization of education, Chami stresses that the use of Modero Arabic as the only medium of instruction at school "has never been associated, in the minds of Moroccan leaders, with a suppression of the study of French as a foreign language" (p. 20). 1 While this is true to sorne extent, one cannot deny, however, that the idea of Arabization started as a reaction against French colonial policies in education and elsewhere and has come to epitomize the linguistic and cultural conftict between traditional and Western values, both symbolically represented in the Arabic and French languages respectively. Today, for many Moroccans, Arabic is closely associated with traditional and Islamic principies, while French is a reflection of modemity and Western ideals. It is this situation that continues to increase the linguistic and cultural tensions between these two languages. In the chapter on the Moroccan education, sorne rather dismal figures are given. For example, while schooling in the urban areas reaches 90 percent to 100 percent, only 19 percent of rural children are actually at school. This figure is significantly alarming in that two-thirds of the general population live in the countryside (p. 27). After a brief survey of the school system, the author focuses on the teaching of French at primary and secondary levels and gives a good evaluation of the various linguistic units and the textbooks used for this purpose. The study is mainly concerned with the errors made by native speakers of Arabic in the fourth year of their secondary schooling. The choice of this grade is not arbitrary, since it is considered an important stage in the Moroccan education system, and whatever the pupils may decide to do afterward will depend on their skills in French. Although the investigation is restricted to the analysis of errors in writing, the author does acknowledge the value of oral skills in language learning. However, the emphasis on writing is justified by the importance given to this aspect in the evaluation of pupils' linguistic performance.

5 116 Book review IJSL 112 Moreover, very often, the pupils' job prospects depend very much on their competence in writing. In fact, the functioning of the Moroccan administration as well as the modero sectors of economy are conducted essentially in French (... ) It is mainly in its written form that French is used in the Moroccan professional context, and only a few pupils will need to use it orally throughout their professional life (p. 9). From a theoretical angle, the study relies on the speculations concerning the importance and significance of learners' errors initiated in the 1960s by Pit Corder (1967). The recurring errors must not be seen as a sign of failure to learn but rather as evidence of the failure of the system the learners use to learn the second language. Along these lines, Chami believes that a good description of the errors made by Moroccan Arabic native speakers could contribute towards a better knowledge of the difficulties these leamers face and the processes of learning the second language. This knowledge may, in tum, lead to the elaboration of more adequate "pedagogical grammars" and to the design of appropriate syllabuses (pp ). The concept of interlanguage, first introduced by Selinker (1972), is also discussed. This refers to the language system that learners create based on data they are exposed to and that shares properties with both the mother tongue and the target language. It is related to those strategies adopted by learners to avoid learning difficulties, namely linguistic interference, overgeneralization, simplification, and avoidance. Studies on error analysis have used various methods of research and techniques for the collection of their material, such as multiple choice questionnaires, pictures, cloze tests, and conversation, to name but a few. The data-gathering procedure in Chami's book consisted of asking the subjects to write an essay about their summer holidays. The specific choice of this technique is justified, in part, by the fact that it allows the pupils to be at ease in the way they express their ideas and to be able to make use of ali their linguistic resources (p. 70). For the organization and description of his corpus, the author adopted a slightly modified version of the EFEC grid ( the acronyms stand for Enquéte sur le Frani;ais Ecrit dans les Cégeps) a method developed by a group of Canadian researchers in the Quebec region to analyze the errors made by learners in written French. The EFEC grid defines six major categories: typography, orthography of usage, inflexional orthography, morphosyntax, punctuation, and lexis (p. 73). The characteristics of the population and the sample used in the study are described in detail in chapter 4. A fairly large number of pupils took

6 Book review /JSL part in the investigation, which consisted of 1520 bilingual learners, 861 of whom were boys and 659 girls. All the subjects were native Arabic speakers and al! carne from one of six major urban centres in Morocco. The results of the research are presented in chapter 5. The author's careful analysis reveals a wide range of areas that require immediate action from teachers for the improvement of pupils' performance in French. The elements that are to be considered as signs of learning difficulties are discussed under separate headings and are listed in Table 65. These constitute 88.1 percent of the total errors identified in the corpus (p. 151). Further analysis of the corpus against the independent variables of sex, age, and area of study shows that there is a significant relationship between these variables and the grammatical categories of the grid. Thus, it appears that boys make more errors in their written French than girls, particularly in morphosyntax and punctuation (p. 140). This is perhaps an obvious finding considering that girls, in general, hold more positive attitudes to language learning and are more motivated in this respect than their male counterparts. This phenomenon is also widespread in many countries and is well documented in the literature (see inter alia Loulidi 1990). However, the implication of this result for the Moroccan context must not be neglected in the design of language syllabuses and textbooks. Another finding in Chami's study is that older learners seem to have more difficulties in their written French than younger ones, as percent of ali the errors detected are made by pupils of 18 to 20 years of age. It is very likely, the author explains, that as pupils get older they tend to use more complex structures and therefore make more mistakes (p. 141 ). However, this is only a hypothesis that still needs to be substantiated in further research. There are also significant differences between pupils living in the various regions where the investigation was carried out. Such differences were attributed to a number of factors, namely the geographical isolation of certain areas, the impact of the colonial linguistic and cultural legacy, and the quality of teachers and administrative staff. In the section on the pedagogical implications of the study, the author proposes a set of measure s that may lead to more effective learning of French. For instance, he points out the importance of motivation in learning the second language and stresses that teachers must concentrate their efforts on increasing their pupils' interest in French. The status of this language in the Moroccan society and the importance of its written aspect in administration and education are factors that might work toward improving pupils' instrumental motivation (p. 147). On the other hand, Chami <loes not hesitate to show sorne scepticism about the absence of grammatical explanation in sorne modern teaching

7 118 Book review /JSL 112 methods. The assumption that the teaching of even basic grammatical rules may hinder the process oflanguage leaming has no scientific foundation. Most of the difficulties encountered by Moroccan leamers in written French stem essentially from poor linguistic resources, namely a very limited vocabulary and an insufficient knowledge of the rules and grammatical structure of the language. Chami finds it rather paradoxical that the teaching of Modem Arabic in Moroccan schools relies entirely on explicit grammatical theory, while in the teaching offrench, this is hardly emphasized. This can only spread confusion in the minds of the pupils, who are expected to react positively to different techniques in the leaming of Arabic and French. If Moroccan pupils do resort to their own mother tongue and/or to Modem Arabic in the leaming of the French language, it would, no doubt, be beneficia! to take this fact into consideration in order to highlight, in the leaming of the second language, those "heuristic instruments" adopted in the acquisition of the first language (p. 158). This may even help in gradually bridging the linguistic gap between Arabic and French and may con tribute toward an improvement of pupils' attitudes to these languages. One of the limitations of Chami's investigation is that it was restricted to only urban native Arabic speakers in the fourth grade of their secondary schooling, thus excluding a large section of the school population. The author, however, is far from claiming that his investigation is representative at the national level. On the contrary, he clearly specifies that the study is only exploratory and that further research is desperately needed before making decisions on any course of action regarding the teaching and leaming of French in Morocco. Such research may consider, for example, the examination of errors made at different levels of schooling and may also undertake to compare native Berber and Arabic speakers in order to circumscribe the impact of the mother tongue on the leaming of the target language. This is done, of course, on the assumption that leamers of different mother tongues use different leaming strategies in the acquisition of the second language. Chami <loes not reject the possibility that Berber speakers may adopt different strategies in leaming French than Arabic speakers. This is a highly important linguistic and pedagogical question, which deserves particular attention (p. 58). Finally, although the study was carried out in the last decade, the findings and the pedagogical implications are entirely relevant to the present state of languages in Morocco. This is, no doubt, a contribution to the general study of language and education in Morocco and must be welcome not only by linguists but also by teachers and anybody interested in the state of language leaming and teaching in this country. The book will be particularly useful to

8 Book review IJSL those who are interested in the application of error analysis to syllabus design and teaching methods. The paucity of research in this area is quite obvious as there is really little published work on the language problems encountered by Moroccan children at school. The author is to be commended for having undertaken such a work, which <loes indeed fill an important gap in the literature. University of Ulster at Coleraine RAFIK LOULIDI Note l. Ali quotes are directly translated from the book under review. References Corder, S. P. (1967). The significance of learners' errors. International Review of Applied Linguistics-5, Loulidi, R. (1990). Is language learning really a 'female business'? Language Learning Journal 1, Selinker, L. (1972). Interlanguage. International Review of App/ied Linguistics 8,