EFL Teaching and Learning in Cameroon: Decolonizing Francophone Teachers’ Minds

British Received Pronunciation is the English accent officially recommended for educational practices in Cameroon although research has shown that it is far-fetched even to English language practitioners (Ngefac 2011). While most Anglophone teachers of English now promote the Cameroon English accent in the classroom, Francophone EFL teachers continue to reject it in favour of native varieties. Interestingly, their efforts to sound native instead lead them to hypercorrection. This phenomenon hinders learners’ fluency in English and the English-French bilingualism policy promoted in the country. The study was carried out from Kachru’s (1985) World Englishes framework and Levis’ (2005) Intelligibility Principle. Drawing from an analysis of the curriculum content designed for the training of EFL and ESL professionals and from a careful observation of classroom practices by Anglophone and Francophone teachers, this paper argues that a decolonization of Francophone EFL teachers’ minds and the replacement of Standard British English by mainstream Cameroon English can significantly enhance the EFL teaching/learning process. Key words: Cameroon, Cameroon English, Received Pronunciation, EFL teaching/learning