Abstract:
The general objective of teaching and learning French in Ghana seeks to develop
communicative competency to equip Ghanaian students with some skills to
communicate with their francophone counterparts (CRDD, 2010). Over the years,
these objectives have not been achieved. Using the descendant and ascendant
listening comprehension models by Gremmo et Holec (1990) through observation
and test, an evaluative study was conducted. It sets to evaluate listening lesson‟s
techniques with regard to both learner‟s understanding and the objective. The study
pointed out that, at the pre-listening stage, expository techniques were used but their
content did not activate relevant previous knowledge on oral text neither were new
elements from the topic tackled. During the listening stage, two types of techniques
were identified. There were close- and open- questions type, initiated by descendant
listening model but they were administered to students after listening, hence,
learners did not interact with the oral content. Teachers also resorted to question/
answer, translation and repetition techniques with which they explained the oral text
to learners in English. Again, listening interaction was absent, but rather, both
written and verbal interactions were privileged. At post-listening stage, no reflective
activity on listening experience, was noted. The results of the test show that 42.2%
of learners passed in items based on linguistic, 35% passed in pragmatic while
64.3% passed in those based on socio cultural aspect. The study concluded that, the
techniques adopted are not beneficial to both learner‟s understanding and the
objective. Hence, the study has suggested remedies to synchronize teaching
techniques for listening comprehension lesson with the objective.
