EMPLOI DE LA CONJONCTION DE SUBORDINATION QUE EN FLE PAR LES APPRENANTS DE PEKI SHTS, PEKI SHS ET KPEVE SHS

ABSTRACT

The study is centered on difficulties associated with the use of the subordinating conjunction que in the French language. The purpose (of the study) was to identify some specific errors made by learners of French and the possible causes related to the use of the conjunction in order to propose techniques and strategies of teaching it. The Contrastive Analysis (CA) and Error Analysis (EA) based on the behaviorist and cognitive theories respectively were used to explain the causes of the learners’ difficulties. Learners and teachers of Peki SHTS, Peki SHS, and Kpeve SHS in the South Dayi District of Volta region were sampled for the study. Data were collected through written exercises administered to learners coupled with a questionnaire for teachers. Mixed method design was adopted to analyse the data collected. In other words, the quantitative and qualitative approaches were used for the analysis. The statistics of the results were presented in the frequency and percentage distribution tables and the interpretation of the results were done according to the different answers learners gave. The findings showed that, learners were confused in identifying the subordinating conjunction que from relative pronoun que. They omitted que or wrongly placed it in the sentence, used wrong moods for the verbs in the noun clauses and replaced the conjunction with other grammatical categories. These difficulties were related to the varied nature of the morpheme que, over generalization of rules and linguistic transfer. Subsequently, some suggestions geared towards teaching activities to meet the needs of the learners were made. For classroom activities, teaching through progression and “technique de fixation” characterized by structural exercises such as transformation were recommended to help learners discover the correct use of the conjunction que.