WE ALL NEED FRENCH

WE ALL NEED FRENCH by Francis Nutsuego

Ghana is surrounded by many French speaking countries .Togo, Benin , Burkina Faso , Cote d ‘Ivoire , Senegal , Niger, Mali and many more and yet we are not able to speak French .

Many Ghanaians do not believe in learning French because they do not understand the importance  of this very special language .

The importance of French language cannot be overemphasized  because everybody needs French  now almost all the professions need it today.

Lawyers are crying because they could not handle certain fantastic cases due to their inability to speak French .Military men and women could not occupy that high role of commander from the UN Mission  because they cannot speak French .I will not leave Medical Doctors , Nurses , Engineers , Architects , Business men and women , Marketing experts , International Business Experts ,Supply Chain and all other professions even Journalists .

They all need  French .

Many of us have neglected French in school due to certain  reasons.

? The French teacher is not friendly 

? French is difficult 

? Lack of French teachers 

Today the same people  will go to Alliance Francaise (af) and pay huge sums of money to study and sometimes are not even able to acquire basic proficiency .

Recently I met a lady with a French note and as curious as I have always been I greete’’ Bonjour’’ and she was a bit cold but responded “ bonjour’’ as well without any confidence and I knew she was a beginner .

I tried to find out about her background and she told me she  did an aviation course and will like to add French in order to land  better job since her sector is very competitive. Apparently she was studying French at Alliance Francaise and she admitted it was not easy  and it is better to learn when you are in school . 

Tony is a  victim of such a situation.

He found a very lucrative IT job  and the role was based in Burkina Faso .His boss instructed him to learn French in order to make communication easy for him , his colleagues and more importantly clients .

Tony was given 6- 9 months to do this .Unfortunately, he did not get enough time to study because his schedule was always busy .Even though he acquired his proficiency certificate after the stipulated time , he could still not express himself well in French .His boss was not happy and they could no longer afford the services of a translator as a business .What do you expect ?Tony was replaced by someone else and he is back in Accra looking for job.

Do not be like Tony  who had the  expertise  in IT but failed to keep his job because of French  something he could have learnt  from  age 3 till University so that by the time he completed Tertiary education , he would have had a full grasp of the language .

My objective is to reduce if not  eradicate  this occurrence.

How to fix it.

We have created  Learn French Early Foundation (LFEF)

This  foundation seeks to promote the teaching and learning of French among children  from age 3 .

The children need to understand the need  for French  that is WHY they have to study French not to reach a certain stage and when it hits them before they will be struggling to study and  end up paying more money and they will not even achieve it.

I have a lot of friends  who are  in a similar situation  now and they  do not want their children  to face the same challenge  and are doing very well  for their children to learn French from a tender age well done to those parents .

We have even developed a Home Tuition Option where our team move from home to home to teach  the  children.

Some  of the parents themselves have enrolled  and are taking part.

We also visit schools, Sunday schools  to educate  the children.

We strongly believe this is the way to go and government needs to watch  and support this project.

When you go to Francophone  countries , a second language is compulsory  irrespective of the department , either Sciences or Arts.

We also need to adopt a similar approach  in Ghana  by making French compulsory at the secondary  and University levels .

Writer : Francis Nutsuego Executive Director Learn French Early Foundation (LFEF)

Email:[email protected] 

Telephone : 0553089599