Language Socialization Research and French Language Education in Africa: A Cameroonian Case Study

This article reports on exploratory ethnographic research on language acquisition and use in a village located in the Mandara Mountains, Cameroon. The study indicates that members of this community share several beliefs and practices related to multilingual communicative competence and its development. In the school attended by children of this village, classroom practices of communication and language socialization differ significantly from those of the community. Discontinuities between community and classroom practices and their implications for French acquisition by children of this community are discussed. The article concludes with a discussion of how language socialization research can contribute to our understanding of community/classroom discontinuities and their consequences for classroom French acquisition, and thus to efforts to improve French language pedagogical practice in Africa.