FRENCH-ENGLISH BILINGUALISM AS A DETERMINANT OF LEARNERS’ GENERAL LANGUAGE COMPETENCE IN SOME SELECTED SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN IBADAN

Abstract

The poor performance in English and French language has called for concern among stakeholders in the field of language education in Nigeria. While students recorded low performance in English across the years, there is low turn- out of students in French language. Researchers have looked into the viability of bilingualism in English and French as a symbiotic measure to finding lasting solution to the problem of general language deficiency among Nigerian learners’ of English and French language respectively. Therefore, this study sought to investigate the complimentary role of English and French language in the attainment of general language competence of some bilingual students in Ibadan, Oyo state.

Purposive sampling technique was used to select 156 students in four junior secondary schools in Ibadan. Three research questions were raised.  Two instruments were used to collect data i.e. ELAT and FLAT. The result shows that there was significant difference in the bilingualism in French and English language among the selected students in the secondary school in Ibadan (t = 7.922, df = 155, P<0.05).  There was no Gender difference in the attainment of Bilingualism in English and French from the selected secondary schools. (t-cal=-279 lesser than t-crit=1.95, P>0.05) There are significant relationships between students’ performance in English and French Language (r= 0.363, P<.05). It is therefore recommended that French and English should be taught concurrently to the students as their performance in French will aid their performance in English language.

Key-words- Bilingualism, English language, French language, General language competence.