The Importance of Learning French as a Second Foreign Language to a Bilingual Secretary
Chapter One
Objective of the study
The objectives of the study ae;
- To find out the important of learning French as a second language
- To find out why many find it difficult to learn French as a second language
- To find out the challenges of bilingual secretary
CHAPTER TWO
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
Bilingualism
What exactly is bilingualism? The definition seems to be easy at first sight, but when we take a closer look, it becomes obvious that the definition of bilingualism is far more complicated and complex. The first answer to this question would be that a child has been brought up with two languages in which it is equally competent and that the use of both languages is perfect. Yet, the ability to communicate in two languages is individually different. Bilingualism means at first that the person is able to communicate in both languages and to apply the code-switching in adequate situations; this includes speaking and understanding as well as reading and writing. This is defined as the ability to articulate correctly, the use of adequate words in number and meaning and the knowledge of building correct words and phrases. The second level involves the correct way of using the language as a communicational means and also the ability to decide which language is the suitable one in which situation. The third level is the lingual-cognitive competence which means at first the ability to understand the meaning of language concerning words and meanings. These three levels combined are called biliteracy (Küpelikilinc, Nicola / Ringler, Maria, 2007, p. 29). A child will never achieve the same proficiency in both languages, only few speakers can become real balanced bilinguals. There will always be a stronger and a weaker language. This. brings up the question how competent the speaker should be when it comes to communicating in more than one language. Researchers have different answers to this question, because there are diverging definitions. For example when a child is brought up in a bilingual family and experiences a bilingual education s/he will learn the language in a controlled way. On the other hand, there are, for example, migrants whose children grow up in a bilingual surrounding, but their bilingual education is much less controlled. We speak of double first language acquisition if a child is exposed to two languages at the same time within the first two years (Dittmann, Jürgen, 2002, p. 92). The most common reason why a child is raised bilingual is that the parents have two different native languages. They can act according to the partner principle, which means that each parent speaks to the child in his or her own language. This is a possibility for each parent to keep his or her own lingual identity while communicating with the child. This is also helpful to make it easier for the child to keep in contact with grandparents and other relatives who may live abroad. Sometimes problems can arise, when one parent is not familiar with the language of the other (Ebd., p. 93) Not only the dissociation between the languages of mother and father is relevant for the childish language acquisition but some other functional language separations occur as well. For example the family language is important. This is the language that is spoken in the family. Also the language that is used between the siblings has a significant role and the third factor is the play language. This is the language the child uses when playing, monologising and which is constituted from other frequent play mates. The fourth aspect is the environmental language, which means the language of the country the child lives in. The last one is becoming more and more important to the child because of the growing influence of educational institutions, play mates etc. In most cases this will become the strong language eventually because the bilingual speaker is not just the sum of two monolinguals. The speaking systems depend on each other and influence each other at the same time. This brings up many aspects that go beyond the acquisition of the first language, like the strong and the weak language. The distinction between strong and weak language shows that there is always a difference between the proficiencies in both languages. But this imbalance can shift and turn around. Harding-Esch/Riley (Harding-Esch and Riley, 2003, p. 23).
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Research design
The researcher used descriptive research survey design in building up this project work the choice of this research design was considered appropriate because of its advantages of identifying attributes of a large population from a group of individuals. The design was suitable for the study as the study sought to The importance of learning French as a second foreign language to a bilingual secretary.
Sources of data collection
Data were collected from two main sources namely:
(i)Primary source and
(ii)Secondary source
Primary source:
These are materials of statistical investigation which were collected by the research for a particular purpose. They can be obtained through a survey, observation questionnaire or as experiment; the researcher has adopted the questionnaire method for this study.
Secondary source:
These are data from textbook Journal handset etc. they arise as byproducts of the same other purposes. Example administration, various other unpublished works and write ups were also used.
Population of the study
Population of a study is a group of persons or aggregate items, things the researcher is interested in getting information on The importance of learning French as a second foreign language to a bilingual secretary. 200 staffs of Yabatech Lagos state was selected randomly by the researcher as the population of the study.
CHAPTER FOUR
PRESENTATION ANALYSIS INTERPRETATION OF DATA
Introduction
Efforts will be made at this stage to present, analyze and interpret the data collected during the field survey. This presentation will be based on the responses from the completed questionnaires. The result of this exercise will be summarized in tabular forms for easy references and analysis. It will also show answers to questions relating to the research questions for this research study. The researcher employed simple percentage in the analysis.
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
Introduction
It is important to ascertain that the objective of this study was on The importance of learning French as a second foreign language to a bilingual secretary. In the preceding chapter, the relevant data collected for this study were presented, critically analyzed and appropriate interpretation given. In this chapter, certain recommendations made which in the opinion of the researcher will be of benefits in addressing the challenge learning French as a second foreign language to a bilingual secretary
Summary
This study was on The importance of learning French as a second foreign language to a bilingual secretary. Three objectives were raised which included: To find out the important of learning French as a second language, to find out why many find it difficult to learn French as a second language and to find out the challenges of bilingual secretary. In line with these objectives, two research hypotheses were formulated and two null hypotheses were posited. The total population for the study is 200 staffs of Yabatech. The researcher used questionnaires as the instrument for the data collection. Descriptive Survey research design was adopted for this study. A total of 133 respondents made HOD, senior lecturer, assistant lecturer and graduate assistant were used for the study. The data collected were presented in tables and analyzed using simple percentages and frequencies
Conclusion
There can be many conditions and individual circumstances that influence the bilingual speaker, from intellect to motivation, from social background to the personal attitude and the individual learner type. Also there is a distinction between bilingual societies and bilingual individuals, which expose the speaker to diverging scenes. These factors make it very hard to find a definition that covers all bilingual speakers. Another factor is the degree of bilingualism. Because it is relative and depending on many individual factors, it is not possible to judge when a person is “native-like” or not since monolinguals also vary in the degree of speaking competence.
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