L2 French learning by Eritrean refugee speakers of Tigrinya

Julie Franck,Despina Papadopoulou

doi:10.1017/s1366728921001048

Abstract

AbstractThis study reports data on 47 Tigrinya speaking Eritrean refugees learning French. L2 French proficiency is assessed through the placement test Ev@lang, a standardized grammar test, and fine corpus analyses. Analysis of individual factors shows that, whereas school education, number of years in Switzerland, and French classes attended play no role in proficiency, age penalizes learning and, critically, multilingualism facilitates it. Corpus analyses replicate difficulties commonly reported in the literature with root infinitives, determiner omission and gender errors. Productions also depart from previous reports as we observed a low rate of subject drop, a high rate of gender errors involving animate nouns, and the overuse of the feminine, in line with Tigrinya grammar. Finally, our data provide preliminary evidence of the validity of Ev@lang in assessing French proficiency in refugees, an issue which is becoming critical with the increased role of language skills in European asylum policies.

Highlights

Over the last five years Europe has experienced a humanitarian crisis due to the massive number of migrants seeking asylum
Results are discussed in regard to the impact of Tigrinya grammar properties in the process of L2 French learning, to the role of individual variables in this process, and to more applied issues related to language assessment and language teaching for refugees
Ev@lang Scores to Ev@lang Grammar & Lexicon (GL) and Ev@lang Oral Comprehension (OC) ranged between 1 and 5, corresponding to levels A1 not reached and B2 respectively, the vast majority being between A1 and A2

Summary

Introduction

Over the last five years Europe has experienced a humanitarian crisis due to the massive number of migrants seeking asylum (see stats in UNHCR, 2019). This paper aims to fill this gap in shedding some light on the way Eritrean refugees, residing in Geneva, learn French as a second language (note that the generic term ‘refugee’ is used to refer to both people with the legal status of refugee and asylum seekers). Results are discussed in regard to the impact of Tigrinya grammar properties in the process of L2 French learning, to the role of individual variables in this process, and to more applied issues related to language assessment and language teaching for refugees

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion