ÉVEIL PRÉCOCE À L'ANGLAIS ET COMPÉTENCE DE COMMUNICATION DES ETUDIANTS FRANCOPHONES

In the early 2000s, Cameroon adopted a policy of early awakening of official bilingualism by instituting the simultaneous teaching of its two official languages, French and English, from primary school, with the objective of enabling each student to communicate fluently in the second official language. This article analyses the impact of that policy, notably in the francophone subsystem of education. The question is: after about fifteen years of English learning, from primary education to high school, can francophone students express themselves fluently in English in real- life situations? Based on a language test conducted at the University of Yaounde 1, this article argues that students appear more competent in handling English grammar theory than in adequately managing real-life communication situations. This discrepancy highlights the limitations of the descriptive approaches to language, which accompanied the early exposure to English. To address this, the article proposes to fully integrate functional and communicative approaches at all levels of the educational system, especially at the macro and meso scales.