Motivation in Language Learning - The Case of Francophone Cameroonian Learners of English

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to present a report of an experiment carried out recently. The study was concerned with the measurement of the motivation and attitudes of Francophone Cameroonian learners of English. This particular area of study caught the researcher's attention because in spite of the fact that Cameroon has been a bilingual state for nearly twenty years, not every Cameroonian speaks both French and English which are the official languages of the state.

What makes the situation even worse is the fact that the government spends much money in fostering bilingualism without even stating the direction to which the bilingualism is geared. As a result there is a lot of resistance from some of the citizens as to why they should study a second official language. This means that the kind of attitude towards bilingualism exhibited in Cameroon by the government affects the kind of motivation and attitudes which young Cameroonians have towards the English language.

French is a dominant official language because of the numerical advantages of French speakers over English speakers. This makes it possible that anglophones become generally more enthusiastic in learning French than the francophones are in learning English.