Didactics of foreign languages - German as a foreign language (ALE)

This study diagnoses the weaknesses of oral communication of learners of German in Côte d'Ivoire by examining the teaching-learning process. This is justified by the fact that learners have difficulty expressing themselves orally in this language. To understand this phenomenon, we undertook empirical research with learners, teachers and pedagogical supervisors, conducted a textbook analysis and observed classroom sessions based on cognitivist and socioconstructivist conceptions of foreign language acquisition. The results of the research show that the learners' speaking difficulties are due to a lack of initiative in the perspective of reinforcing the class' achievements, to the inadequacy of the teachers' training, to the inadequacy of the learning conditions and the didactic tools and to the irrelevance of the language tool to the learners' daily communication situations. We therefore suggest administrative, pedagogical and didactic devices for a better acquisition of oral communication skills.