Abstract:
Developing competence in orthography as a crucial factor in the mastery of the French language is the subject matter of this research work. This thesis looked at teaching strategies to be put in place in order to help learners of French as a foreign language within the university context in Ghana improve competence in French orthography through the use of ICT tools. The study focused on finding out specific weaknesses of students by identifying, classifying and analysing their errors related to various aspects of the French orthography system. The communicative theory of Hymes (1972), the plurisysteme theory of Catach (2001) and the theory of instructional design of Gagne (1985) constituted the theoretical framework of the study. The relationship between orthographic, linguistic, and communicative competence was explored and related data were collected through 60 respondents purposively sampled from University of Education, Winneba and University of Cape Coast. A mixed research design was used to gather the data through a questionnaire, an essay type and multiple-choice tests which were analysed using Atlas. Ti. 6.2 and SPSS 20.0. Results were discussed based on frequencies, percentages and the number of occurrences with regards to specific types of errors analysed
according to specific orthographic units that were identified in a chart we proposed. Various types of errors committed by students were identified to be related to major areas of their weakness in French orthography. One major causative factor of this weakness was found to be closely related to orthography not taught as an aspect of the language. It was also revealed that students' exposure to the use of ICT to learn other aspects the language, coupled with the availability or varieties of resources could help improve the situation. The study therefore suggested a model which combines the use of ICT tools, the principles of the task-based approach that could be adapted by teachers to help improve leaners' competence not only in orthography but in their written language as a whole.
