Students' Attitudes towards Arabic-French Bilingualism in different Educational Environments: The Preparatory school and the Department of Social Sciences Tlemcen University.

Abstract

People living in the globalisation era, tend to use more than one language to communicate with each other. Multilingualism is widely spread in the world as many languages are spoken and used in many countries. The sociolinguistic situation in Algeria is a complex one because of the coexistence of many languages: modern standard Arabic, Algerian codes, French and Berber in some regions. The purpose of this work is to understand students’ attitudes towards the French language and the level of their proficiency in it. To reach this end, a case study was conducted at Tlemcen University consisting of social sciences and preparatory school students. By means of a questionnaire and participant observation, the data collected were analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively. The results revealed that, unlike students of social sciences department, preparatory school students show more positive attitudes to the French language. This is due to the educational system mainly, and for setting reasons also, since we found that students who are originally from the Algerian east have received a bilingual education from an earlier age in kindergardens. Girls also showed more competence in the mastery of French than boys. They consider it as a prestigious language and a means to show their femininity. It is true that the French oral practice is low among them. But this cannot be the only reason behind their deficiency in French.