AUTEUR : Innocent FASSE

Université de Douala, Département de Science de l'éducation de l'ENSET de DOUALA

RESUME

Mastery of language skills is crucial to the professional success of future engineers in an increasingly globalised and bilingual working environment. However, in Cameroon, most engineering training programmes lack a common framework of reference for language teaching, especially English/French for Specific Purposes. In the rare cases where languages courses do exist, they are often limited to 20 or 30 hours, concentrated in the first two years of study, with neither the learning objectives nor the teaching methodologies clearly defined. What's more, the profile of language teachers in these institutions is not standardised, which creates significant variability in the quality of teaching. This situation leads to linguistic shortcomings among students who, despite having acquired solid technical skills, enter the professional world with insufficient communication skills to interact effectively in complex professional contexts both orally and scripturally. This shortcoming can be attributed to weaknesses in the language in education policy of Cameroon which does cater for such issues (Fassé 2020). This study, which focuses on the English and French programmes at the Higher National Polytechnic School of Douala, sets out to analyze the challenges associated with the absence of common syllabuses and a framework of reference for language teaching. It is based on curriculum theory (Tyler, 1949), which emphasizes the systematic planning of teaching, and on the theory of skills acquisition (Anderson, 1982), which postulates that repetition and structured use of skills are essential to their development. The methodology of the study will include an analysis of existing programmes, interviews with teachers and students, and recommendations for the establishment of a national framework of reference. The aim of this research is to promote the creation of common syllabuses that take into account the linguistic needs of engineers in training, with teaching adapted to the requirements of the labour market.

MOTS CLES

Language Teaching, Language education policy, Language Syllabus, Common framework of references