Standards, Contexts, and Strategies for Teaching French in C�te d'Ivoire

Adopting a sociolinguistic approach, this book examines the factors and elements that make the future of French in Côte d'Ivoire unpredictable. Indeed, French is currently undergoing a process of changing language practices and the emergence of different varieties. This book, which draws on the results of an empirical survey we conducted in Ivorian secondary schools, revealed that, pedagogically speaking, in the Ivorian education system-from preschool through university-French, which is the sole medium of instruction, is taught without regard for the learners' mother tongues. This omnipresence of French gives rise to highly contradictory attitudes. In this context, Nouchi appears, for many students, as an alternative to French. An analysis of the functions students attribute to this linguistic form reveals, on the one hand, a highly complex picture of the Ivorian linguistic landscape in which Standard French and its other varieties coexist, and on the other hand, the reasons that determine the use, learning, and transmission of a language.