Takam, Alain

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    Aménagement de l'acquisition: du trilingiusme fontionnel a la pédagogie convergente
    (Institute of Advanced Engineering and Science, 2013) Takam, Alain F.
    Social bilingualism, unlike official bilingualism, is very common. In most countries, the official language/s and tens or hundreds of other languages coexist; many such unofficial languages facing extinction. What is noticeable is that when language planning does not follow the ecological approach, i.e., when it emphasizes the strengthening of a particular language rather than the “structured diversity” of all the languages that make up a particular linguistic ecosystem, that can negatively impact the survival of minority languages. This study, which was carried out from the perspective of ecolinguistics, was aimed at promoting linguistic diversity through the protection of minority languages. It was essentially based on acquisition planning. The protection referred to here could be ensured, among other means, through the progressive acquisition of three or more languages in the education system. In Cameroon, a French – English bilingual country, the minority official language and many local languages are taught in school with varying degrees of success. It was interesting to critically look at some teaching approaches of those languages with the objective of showing how it could be possible, for those whose first language is neither French nor English, to better learn French and/or English, through convergent pedagogy, an educative approach based on the development of bilingualism or multilingualism.
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    Language policy in education: second official language in (technical) education in Canada and Cameroon
    (Canadian Center of Science and Education, 2018) Takam, Alain F.; Mbouya, Innocent F.
    It should be said from the outset that, apart from Esambe’s (1999) MA thesis, no comparative research, to the best of our knowledge, has so far been devoted to the study of language policy in education in both Canada and Cameroon. Yet, these two countries offer a fascinating basis for comparison because English and French (which were instituted at roughly the same time in these two countries) are the two official languages in each country, but the minority status is reversed. This study, which rests on the observation that students from technical training programmes generally underperform or lack interest in their second official language (SOL), aims at comparing the current policies of SOL in education in order to see how both countries’ experiences can be mutually informing. To achieve its purpose, this research focuses on the analysis of the policies of official languages (OLs) in education in both countries, specifically regarding technical training programmes. More clearly, language policy in education and SOL education policy as obtained in both countries will be comparatively examined. The comparison, it is hoped, will reveal the fundamental causes of the overall poor performance or lack of interest observed in Cameroon and Canada respectively.