Analysis of French grammatical gender errors committed by learners in Tanzanian universities

Abstract

This paper analyses the grammatical gender errors committed by learners of French as a foreign language in four Tanzanian universities: UDSM, UDOM, DUCE and Makumira (University of Dar es Salaam, University of Dodoma, Dar es Salaam University College of Education and Makumira University). The paper has three specific objectives: (i) to identify grammatical gender errors, (ii) to account for their sources and (iii) to propose a corrective treatment. The study included a total of 61 respondents. The data was collected through learners' written texts in French from which a corpus was developed. The study was guided by the error analysis approach and interlanguage theory. The data was analysed qualitatively and quantitatively. The findings show that grammatical gender errors were found with regard to the masculine definite article (29.73%), the feminine definite article (24.32%), the masculine indefinite article (22.97%), the feminine indefinite article (16.22%) and possessive adjectives (6.76%). These findings show there is a need to help learners of French as a foreign language in the context of Tanzania using the recommended strategies.