Abstract:
The focus of this study was on strategies that students would adopt in order to
comprehend information that is available to them while browsing a French
website. It sought to identify the mental processes that underlie comprehension on
the Internet taking as basis research realized in the cognitive sciences by
RUBIN (1989), OXFORD (1990), O'MALLEY and CHAMOT (1990) and
COHEN (1998) about language learning strategies.
From 52 students doing French in four public universities in Ghana, we were able
to obtain through think-aloud procedures, data about strategies that they adopted
when browsing on authentic websites in French. The browsing tasks involved shopping for items on the Internet, booking a place on a train or in a hotel, among others. Browsing strategies such as looking out for clues, critical reading, trial and error, seeking help, forming hypothesis were identified as strategies that aid comprehension of information on the websites. The strategies helped students to guess meaning through such means as inference (in context - keywords, images, interactive tools, colours, etc.), deductive and inductive reasoning, translation, analogy and textual analysis with previous knowledge in French. Social and affective strategies such as seeking explanation from a peer and reminding oneself of goals of the tasks also helped students confirm interpretative guesses about words and phrases, they encountered for the first time in French.
At the end of the study, it was quite evident that strategies adopted by students in
understanding information on the website did not differ from those identified by
early research in cognitive sciences. However, it is important to note how these
strategies enhanced the general understanding of the French Language by students
and also their autonomy in learning the language.
