Kouam, C.. Global Journal of Transformative Education (2024) Vol 4 pp 31-42 DOI 10.14434/gjte.v4i1.36723 Open Access Published by the Global Insitutute of Transformative Education (http://www.gite.education) © Kouam, 2024. Open Access This journal is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial NonDerivative 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction without revision in any non-commercial medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, English as Foreign Language (EFL) Teaching and Learning in Cameroon: Decolonizing Francophone Teachers’ Minds Clement Kouam Abstract This article makes an argument for Francophone EFL (English as Foreign Language) teachers in Cameroon to recover from the ‘Ukolonia’ syndrome (Bokamba, 2011) and to use the indigenised variety of English as the model for teaching and learning instead of continuing to target the Standard British English accent. The study shows that the attempt to use an Inner Circle accent as a model leads to hypercorrection and limited fluency on the part of the learners. On the other hand, the use of the indigenised variety as a model by a few Anglo- phone EFL teachers results in better proficiency. The arguments are supported by (1) a questionnaire survey of 50 Franchophone EFL teachers, (2) classroom observation carried out in ten EFL classes five of which were conducted by Anglophone teachers and the other five by Francophones, and (3) the analysis of curriculum documents for teacher education. The study is underpinned by Bokamba’s (2011) Ukolonia theory and Kach- ru’s (1985) World Englishes framework. The paper argues that a decolonization of Francophone EFL teachers’ mindset and the replacement of Standard British English by mainstream Cameroon English can enhance the EFL teaching/learning process significantly. The findings and the recommendations provided also constitute a good material for innovation in EFL teacher education and in classroom practice. Keywords: Cameroon, Cameroon English, Received pronunciation, EFL teaching/learning Full listing of authors and contacts can be found at the end of this article. The Sociolinguistic Context of Cameroon Cameroon is a multilingual country with 273 living indigenous languages (Eberhard, Simons, & Fennig, 2023) and numerous foreign languages, two of which (French and English) are colonial legacies inherited from the Franco-British colonial rule. Located at the intersection between West and Central Africa, the Re- public of Cameroon is a blend of former East Cameroon (French colony from 1916 to 1960) and former West Cameroon (British colony from 1916 to 1961). While the former has remained essentially Francophone, the latter continues to be a dominantly English-speaking area. Although Cameroon had for long been a German protectorate (1884-1916) before the taking over by France and Britain following their victory over Germa- ny during the First World War, the impact of the Ger- man language in the country is insignificant as com- pared to that of French and English. Besides being the most important lingua francas for both intranational and international communication, they are the only of ficial languages of the country. In the partitioning of the war trophy, Britain obtained one-fifth of the Cameroo- nian territory composed of two discontinuous strips of land along the Nigerian border while France acquired the remaining four-fifths (Echu, 2003). The two colonial powers adopted different modes of administration in their colonies. Interestingly, many current developments in English in general and in attitudes and pedagogic concerns in particular are still a reflection of the colonial systems that were practised. For instance, despite the current scramble for English in the French-speaking part of Cameroon, Francophone EFL (English as Foreign Language) teachers’ attitude still clearly shows their preference for the far-fetched Standard British English accent to the detriment of the more attainable Cameroon English model. Though other factors (e.g., variation in curriculum content for EFL and ESL teacher education) may come into play in accounting for this attitudinal behaviour, the French colonial system of indirect rule that attempted to create an idealised Europeanised African appears to be one of the tangible explanations. 31 Kouam, EFL Teaching & Learning in Cameroon 32 Training and specificities of EFL and ESL teachers in Cameroon Most Cameroonian teacher training colleges devote two series to the training of secondary and high school teachers of English, namely the English Modern Letters series and the Bilingual Letters series. While the former is overwhelmingly dominated by student teachers with an Anglophone background, Francophone students dominantly constitute the latter. Upon completion, graduates from the Bilingual unit are transferred to secondary and high schools to teach English and French as foreign languages (EFL/FFL). On their part, those from the purely English division serve as ESL (English as a Second Language) teachers. However, given the extremely large number of the Francophone student population, some ESL teachers are often solicited for the teaching of EFL. The observation stage of the study showed that while ESL teachers’ efforts are geared towards the upgrading of learners’ communicative skills through indigenized Cameroon English, most of their Franco- phone EFL colleagues waste precious time, energy and resources targeting near-native English speech appro- priation by the Francophone learners. Unfortunately, their efforts do not yield the expected results as they themselves do not master the native accent they want the learners to acquire. In other words, Francophone EFL teachers jeopardise the EFL teaching and learn- ing process with hypercorrection, resulting from their unattainable goal to sound British or American. This paper seeks to explain the strong attachment of Fran- cophones to native English speech, examine the conse- quences of this phenomenon on the EFL teaching and learning process and suggest solutions to the problem. There seems to be a close relationship between the colonial modes of administration in the two parts of Cameroon and the attitude of English users towards English. While the French system of assimilation ex- posed Francophone Cameroonians to standard French, the British policy of indirect rule rather promoted an educational policy that deviated Anglophone Camer- oonians from standard English. This is confirmed by Simo Bobda (2004) who equates the British policy to “linguistic apartheid’’ and Bokamba (2011) who notes that the French, unlike their Belgian, British and Ger- man counterparts who appeared to be largely circum- spect regarding their assimilation objectives, were very explicitly eloquent, with education as the means par ex- cellence for achieving them. Thus, the attitude to accent in teaching French in Cameroon might have been transferred to the teaching of EFL. Language policy in Cameroon Although advocacies for linguistic decolonization have been receiving favourable echoes in many African countries (e.g., Botswana, Burundi and even Nigeria) where local languages now have official and other im- portant statuses (Bokamba, 2011), the language policy in Cameroon is still geared towards the sole promotion of colonially inherited languages. The current language policy itself tends to be, to a great extent, a reproduc- tion of colonial practices. Language policies in the colonial era The correlation between the language policy that held sway in East Cameroon during the colonial peri- od and the yearning for the native English accent by Francophone teachers of English in Cameroon is obvi- ous. This myth of the native speaker dates back to the French colonial period where the policy of assimilation prepared the indigenous people to target the colonial master’s speech model. This contrasted significantly with the system of indirect rule applied by Britain in its colonies, former West Cameroon included. The aim of the French policy was to replace the indigenous languages, cultures and civilization with the French one. Echu (2003) reports that barely one year after taking over Cameroon from the Germans, France instituted a special subvention for schools that used French as the language of instruction and those that taught in indigenous languages were closed. Thus, 47 schools opened by Sultan Njoya in the Bamun region were all closed down and his printing press destroyed. Many other schools (e.g., those run by the American Presbyterian missionaries, and in which Bulu was the language of instruction later suffered the same fate (Echu, 2003, 36). This policy quickly paved the way to the creation of many French-medium schools before independence (e.g., Lycée Leclerc, Lycée Joss Douala and Lycée Manengouba Nkongsamba). The French and trained Cameroonians ran such schools to acquire a native-like command of the French language. Look- ing at the drastic nature of the measures undertaken to promote the French model of education, one can logically suspect that such actions were aimed to serve a hidden agenda. It won’t therefore be an exaggeration to conclude with Bokamba (2011) that the colonial cul- ture assimilatory or brainwashing objectives were well elaborated and “touched on the means to achieve more important and fundamental objectives: Cheap African Global Journal of Transformative Education (2024) Vol 4 Kouam, EFL Teaching & Learning in Cameroon 33 Global Journal of Transformative Education (2024) Vol 4 labor and other economic benefits for France.” On their own, the British governed through Cam- eroonian traditional authorities. The use of indigenous languages (Bafut, Duala, Kenyang, Mungaka, etc.) as lan- guages of instruction was a common phenomenon. Pid- gin English, rather than Standard English, was promot- ed alongside these local languages (Echu, 2003). For Simo Bobda (2004), the British seem to have thought that Pidgin English was more suitable for Africans than standard English and at the same time a way to keep Africans away from their privacy. Kachru (1986) con- firms this, noting that the acquisition by Africans of native-like proficiency in English made them suspect. Looking at the two colonial systems, it readily ensues that Francophones, through the system of assimilation, were moulded to look up to the native speech model, contrary to Anglophones who were trained to prioritise the communicative value of English rather than to long for Standard British English. The language policy in postcolonial Cameroon French became the official language in French-speaking Cameroon upon independence in 1960 and English enjoyed the same status in the En- glish-speaking area following its independence in 1961. At reunification on 1 October, 1961, official bilingualism was instituted in the new federal republic. Cameroon, like many other former African colonies, obviously opted for this foreign language option in order to avoid a language conflict arising from the choice of an in- digenous language on the one hand and the financial and material cost on the other (Bokamba, 2007; Echu, 2003). To promote the official bilingualism policy, the government made the teaching of English and French compulsory in the two subsystems of education inher- ited from colonisation. Since then, French has mainly been operating as a foreign language in the Anglophone subsystem. English has also been enjoying the same privilege in the Francophone subsystem. The following excerpt from the Constitution of 18 January 1996 better captures the current language policy in Cameroon. The official languages of the Republic of Cameroon shall be English and French, both languages hav- ing the same status. The State shall guarantee the promotion of bilingualism throughout the country. It shall endeavour to protect and promote national languages. (Article 1, paragraph 3) Despite constitutional provisions which make clear that French and English have the same status and con- stitute the backbone of the country’s language policy, it is obvious that French remains the main official language. The numerical advantage of French-speaking Cameroon (eight regions out of ten and seventy-five percent of the national population) favours this situa- tion which has caused a lot of harm to national unity. Anglophones have long complained about linguistic marginalization and the posting of Francophone mono- lingual administrators, magistrate and teachers to their regions is often cited as one of the main reasons accounting for the Anglophone Crisis which has been going on since 2016. Hopefully, the new trend consist- ing of Francophones rushing for English is likely to reduce French dominance over English in the future in both public and social spheres. As for the hundreds of Cameroonian languages, they continue to be relegated to the background even though more efforts are now made to promote them through formal education. But even here, they compete with other imported languages such as Spanish, Ger- man, Chinese, Russian, Italian and even the fading Latin. Also, even though it is not uncommon for public work- ers to speak their local language with collaborators or users of the same linguistic community, this practice is frequently denounced, and its promoters accused either of tribalism or of taking the administration hostage to the benefit of their village people. Bokamba (2011) warns against such a neglect of local languages in favour of policies that privilege the colonial master’s language, observing that If Africa is to reclaim its destiny and emerge from its “downward spiral” of missteps and misfortunes of the last fifty years or so, the utilization of key African languages in public domains represents not only a major rectification in the development trajectory, but also invaluable tools towards its ad- vancement. The time to engage this process is now, and we, Africans alone, are its captains and naviga- tors. As argued in Bokamba (2007), if the Ukolonia behavior discussed here, which is a curable syn- drome via civic/cultural education, is not reversed, Africa will suffer a deeper level of marginaliza- tion, and it will certainly be trampled over by the ever-encroaching globalization of English, French, and Portuguese through multinational companies that are aggressively seeking unfettered access to African natural resources. (pp. 162-163) Indeed, English as a global language has penetrat- ed Cameroon so profoundly that Francophones are increasingly neglecting local languages in favour of English. As a result, more and more kids grow up in the Kouam, EFL Teaching & Learning in Cameroon 34 French part of the country without the knowledge of their mother tongues. English in Francophone Cameroon It was not until the early 1990s that Francophones started developing real interest for English, the lan- guage that had become the first international language and the language of business and professional opportu- nities. Mbangwana (2004) depicts the unprecedented rush of French-speaking Cameroonians for English in the following terms: Francophones who never bothered learning En- glish through the bilingual training programme in the university, which was free of charge, start- ed looking for money after graduating from uni- versities to register for language courses, wheth- er they were private language institutes such as the B & K Language Institute, British Council, or the American Cultural Center. All of these efforts were for acquiring the language that served like a passport to study or work abroad around the world. (p. 25) The passion of Francophone Cameroonians for English has led to a situation where they are now mas- sively represented in EFL teaching in secondary edu- cation nationwide. This zeal for the language has even led to the emergence of a new variety of English known as Cameroon Francophone English and abbreviated as CamFE (Atechi, 2015; Ngefac, 2022; Safotso, 2018; Simo Bobda, 2013). Due to this new brand, the label Camer- oon Anglophone English (CamAE) is now supplanting that of Cameroon English (CamE) in referring to the English of Anglophone Cameroonians. Although CamFE still necessitates an in-deph linguistic description, it is fast gaining ground. The exceptionally rapid growth of Cameroon Francophone English (which is normally an EFL variety) is also due to its proximity and even its co-existence with Cameroon Anglophone English (which is an ESL variety). The place of CamFE and CamAE within English-speaking communities English-speaking communities across the world obey to specific classifications. Crystal (2003) distin- guishes between ENL (English as a Native Language), ESL (English as a Second Language) and EFL (English as a Foreign Language) communities. Kachru (1985) introduces the terminologies Inner Circle, Outer Circle and Expanding Circle in the place of ENL, ESL and EFL, respectively. Kachru’s classification pays close atten- tion to the types of spread, the patterns of acquisition and the functional domains in which English is used across cultures. It highlights, for instance, the difference between traditional native speakers (found in coun- tries which represent the traditional seats of English) and the functional native speakers (who are those that speak English as from birth in Outer Circle countries). However, both classifications share significant similar- ities. Crystal and Kachru both present the first com- munity (ENL community/ Inner Circle) as including settings where English is mostly used as mother tongue and unique language by the population. Such coun- tries comprise the United Kingdom, the United States of America, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. The Second group (ESL countries/ Outer Circle) includes former British colonies. In this circle, English enjoys a prestigious status because it is generally one of the offi- cial languages if not the only one. It occupies a prepon- derant position among the two or numerous languages which make the speakers’ linguistic repertoire. Here, English often exists alongside many other languages and is significantly indigenised. It is generally assigned a very high status (official or co-official language). It is used as a medium of instruction and a language of administration. Countries which belong to this circle include Anglophone Cameroon, Nigeria, India, Malaysia, Singapore, Ghana, Kenya, Hawaii and South Africa. The third group (EFL countries/Expanding Circle) includes the rest of the English-speaking world. In this circle, En- glish is used mainly for international communication. In such contexts, the English language is simply a subject in the curriculum and is used only for specific purposes. Francophone Cameroon, France, South Korea, China, Tunisia, Egypt, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and Russia are some of the countries which belong to the Expanding Circle. Francophone Cameroonians’ attitudes towards Cameroon English In spite of the fact that Francophone Cameroonians are now passionate about the English language and the English subsystem of education, they prefer native Englishes, especially British English, and reject indi- genised CamE which they view as’pidginized.” However, research has shown that targeting native English in Cameroon is unattainable. Kouam (2022) shows that the attempt by Franchophone Cameroonians to articu- late native English features only results in hypercorrec Global Journal of Transformative Education (2024) Vol 4 Kouam, EFL Teaching & Learning in Cameroon 35 tion, defined by Labov (1966) as the tendency whereby speakers strive to articulate standard linguistic fea- tures, but end up producing features that are neither those of the standard variety they are targeting nor those of the mainstream variety spoken by members of their speech community and which they were trying to avoid. This phenomenon seems to be greatly compro- mising ELT efforts in the country’s EFL context. While postcolonial theorists such as Wa Thiongo (1986) and Bolton, Kachru, Kachry, and Nelson (2006) advocate linguistic decolonization and a pronounced preference of indigenous African languages in education to en- able the Africanisation of the educational industry, it is difficult to understand the preference of Francophone Cameroonians for native English models and the rejec- tion of the indigenised accent which has the advantage of portraying the identity of the postcolonial user to a great extent. This attitude is a clear indication that the French colonial system of assimilation still holds sway in the minds of Francophone Cameroonians. It totally contradicts the aspirations formulated in decoloniza- tion voices. For Bolton, Kachru, Kachry, & Nelson (2006, 230), learners should “target pronunciation which is easier to learn because it is more attuned to the phonology of their mother tongues, without forfeiting intelligibility,” instead of struggling to produce the mannerisms of an idealised native speaker of English. These scholars encourage the promotion of pronunciation models with which speakers of the New Englishes are familiar and which are attained through formal education to ensure international intelligibility. Bolton, Kachru, Kachry, and Nelson (2006) corroborate Kramsch’s (1999) recom- mendation that each variety of English must cater for both intranational and international communication. In the same connection, Firth (1964) recommends that second language learners of English be equipped with the educated variety of their local accents. He views “educated English” as follows: By educated English we must not understand Standard English. Educated English shows a wide range of permissible variations. Speakers of this kind of English do not necessarily submerge all signs of social or geographical origin. Their accent is often unmistakably local or characteristic of a class. Educated English is spoken by all the classes of people all over the English-speaking world. This is the only kind of English that has the remotest chance of universality even in Great Britain itself. (Firth, 1964, 196) The quote above shows that targeting strict Amer- ican and British accents in postcolonial settings to the detriment of the educated varieties of the local English- es is a futility. Firth’s (1964) view is shared by Achebe (1965) who opines that non-native speakers of English should passionately espouse their local English models and avoid useless emulations of native speech forms. He declares: So my answer to the question ‘Can an African ever learn English well enough to be able to use it effectively in creative writing?’ is certainly yes. If on the other hand you ask ‘Can he ever learn to use it as a native speaker?’ I should say, I hope not. It is neither necessary nor desirable for him to be able to do so. The price a world language must be pre- pared to pay is submission to many different kinds of use. (Achebe, 1965, 29) Achebe (1965) thus sees indigenized varieties of English as hallmarks of the African identity and as varieties which Africans should go for. Unfortunately, the myth of the native speaker continues to be present and is sometimes encouraged by ELT professionals as is the case with Simo Bobda (2004, 25) who points out that “the educational and professional survival of the ambitious African at the beginning of the third millennium still largely depends on how well he or she accommodates to Inner Circle Englishes”. He upholds that it is a truism that school curricula in Africa must seek to promote this accommodation. The Cameroonian scenario is perfectly in line with this recommenda- tion. Ngefac (2011, 40) observes that “in most English Language textbooks used for the teaching of English in Cameroon, drills on Standard British English accent abound and no drills are provided for educated Camer- oon English pronunciation.” Although the situation has improved a little bit now, with more and more literary works and a few teaching materials designed based on CamE, most current English Language textbooks, if not all (e.g., Interactions in English) still reflect Inner Circle English norms. Methodology Fifty (50) Francophone and five (5) Anglophone EFL teachers from ten (10) secondary and high schools in three French-speaking regions of Cameroon were recruited as participants for this study. They were selected among seventy-four EFL teachers who made up the EFL teaching staff of the ten schools. The regions selected included Centre, Littoral and West. Different Global Journal of Transformative Education (2024) Vol 4 Kouam, EFL Teaching & Learning in Cameroon 36 research tools were used to collect data. A short ques- tionnaire was designed to thoroughly identify teachers and elicit their claims about the English accent they promote for educational practices. It was given to Fran- cophone EFL teachers exclusively. A survey of the cur- riculum was also done to check if student teachers from both the Bilingual Letters series (future EFL teachers) and the English Modern Letters series (prospective ESL teachers) are subjected to the same English Language courses during their training. The purpose was to sub- sequently find out if there was any correlation between pronunciation choice in the classroom and the content of the curriculum that served for their instruction. In other words, is there any relationship between pronun- ciation practice in the ELT classroom and the nature of the courses taught at the teacher training school? An observation of five EFL classes conducted by Franco- phone teachers also helped to determine the extent to which the pedagogic model practised by Francophone EFL teachers reflects their claims in the questionnaire. This model was then compared to what obtains in the EFL teaching situations conducted by the five selected Anglophone teachers. As concerns theoretical considerations, Bokamba’s (2011) Ukolonia theory and Kachru’s (1985) World Englishes model are the perspectives from which the study was carried out. Bokamba (2011, 161) defines Ukolonia as “a psychological syndrome that obfuscates the rational thinking of a patient in a postcolonial society and causes him/her to evaluate himself/herself in terms of values and standards established by the former colonial masters’ culture(s)’’. This reflects Fran- cophone Cameroonians’ attitude towards Cameroon English; an attitudinal tendency that clearly reveals the internalized colonial mentality that characterizes these English users. As for the origin of this slave mentality, Bokamba (2011) explains: Ukolonia resulted from the long-term brainwash- ing that characterized the explicit or implicit policy of assimilation of Africans to Western cultures, especially through education, religious practices, and administrative practices. Through these agen- cies, African customs and cultures were viewed as inferior to their Western counterparts, and thus devalued and stigmatized as “backward”; while, in contrast the Western modes of life were valued, promoted, and incentivized as worthy of emulation. (p. 161) From the above description, it is clear that Ukolonia remains a widespread practice in Cameroon. Even the school curricula seem to serve the needs of the West more than those of Cameroon. Concerning Kachru’s (1985) World Englishes mod- el, it acknowledges the irreversible indigenisation pro- cess undergone by English out of its traditional seats, and establishes the New Englishes as autonomous vari- eties with characteristic features. Therefore, it contrasts with frameworks such as Error Analysis, which view all deviations from traditional native Englishes as errors and, consequently, as uninvited guests in any ELT situa- tion. In this perspective, it is actual communication and intelligibility which are the watchwords, and not nec- essarily how much a speaker can twist their tongue to approximate native speech models. Besides, the model denounces the monopole that Inner Circle Englishes still have in many non-native environments. For Kachru (1985), Inner Circle speakers cannot continue to be the exclusive norm-setters in a context where the English language has transcended many national, international and continental boundaries to emerge as a global lingua franca. In this development process, Ngefac (2012, 169) points out, English has significantly embraced the contextual realities of postcolonial contexts, due to the process of nativisation through which each New English setting “has acquired new norms of correctness, which very much reflect the twists and turns the language has undergone in such contexts”. Many Outer Circle coun- tries and even some Expanding Circle ones are claiming their Englishness, thereby manifesting their wish to move from norm-depending to norm providing English settings. This can only be made possible through frame- works such as the present ones. Data Analysis and Findings The analysis of the data collected yielded interest- ing findings. Representation of Francophones in EFL teaching One of the issues which need to be surveyed ac- curately in the EFL teaching sector in Cameroon is that of ‘who teaches English as a Foreign Language in Cameroon’. The answer to this question is likely to shed more light on the speech orientations millions of Francophone Cameroonians trained in secondary and high schools receive every year. In other words, if EFL teachers are mostly Anglophone Cameroonians, the learners will obviously tend to be accustomed to Cam- eroon Anglophone English. On the contrary, if the EFL teaching staff is dominated by Francophones as pre- Global Journal of Transformative Education (2024) Vol 4 Kouam, EFL Teaching & Learning in Cameroon 37 dicted in this study, there is a likelihood that Camer- oonian learners from the Francophone sub-system of education will be adepts of Cameroon Francophone English, which also entails that their likelihood to exhibit hypercorrection in their English speech will be very high. This is because CamFE has been observed to be a variety with a great deal of hypercorrect features. Not having the means to carry out a large-scale survey to determine the exact percentage of Francophone EFL teachers serving nationwide, we could, at least, do this verification from the ten schools we consulted for the investigation. In each EFL Department (common- ly referred to as Anglais Department), the number of teachers was determined. Then a distinction was made between those who had a Francophone background and those with an Anglophone background. The table below provides a picture of the representation of Franco- phones in the ten EFL departments that were visited. As shown in Table 1, EFL teachers are mostly Fran- cophones (up to 67.5% of the EFL teachers that were met in the schools that were sampled). The overall teaching staff of the ten EFL Departments that were visited was made up of seventy-four (74) EFL teach- ers. Out of this number, up to 50 had a Francophone background. While in some departments we could have a fair number of Anglophones (e.g., 4 out of 10 teach- ers met in Government Bilingual High School Obala), in others (e.g., Government Technical High School Nkometou-Centre where 6 EFL teachers could be found), all were Francophones. These figures clearly denote the predominance of Francophone teachers in the teaching of English to Francophone Cameroonians. As mentioned earlier, a questionnaire was adminis- tered exclusively to the fifty Francophone teachers. This aimed at eliciting their preferred English accent for ELT. Francophone EFL teachers preferred English accent Teachers were expected to choose their preferred English accent for educational practic- es out of the three options that were proposed, namely (1) the Standard British English Accent, abbreviated as SBE and also known as Received Pronunciation or RP, (2) the Cameroon English (CamE) Accent and (3) a Mixture of SBE and CamE ac- cents. The table below displays their choices. Table 2 indicates that up to 38 (76%) of the teach- ers went for the native accent (Standard British En- glish). While 9 (18%) were in favour of a mixture of native and Cameroon English accents, only 3 (6%) showed a preference for the indigenised Cameroon English accent. These figures are very indicative of Francophone Cameroonians’ very negative attitude towards Cameroon Anglophone English and their strong attachment to Western speech models. Given that there is often a gap between what one prefers and what they actually have or do, it was considered suitable to seek to know what they think they teach. Their claims are displayed in Table 3. It is quite interesting to note that as many as 28 Francophone EFL teachers (56%) out of 50 claimed they teach nothing but the Standard British English ac- cent. This claim makes one wonder if what these teach- ers claimed they are teaching was actually what they taught. Such a preoccupation could only be addressed through classroom observation that was carried out at a later stage of the data collection process. Nineteen (38%) acknowledged that they teach a mixture of native and CamE accents and only 3 (6%) recognized that they teach the indigenized Cameroon English accent. From all indications, teach- ers’ claims are not genuine but simply a way for them to show that they abide by the official recommendations to promote traditional native English norms. Kachru (1986, 117) thinks it’s not only useless but impossible to implement Inner Circle English standards in postcolonial environments. That is why he disagrees with non-native speakers who boldly claim they speak Received Pronunciation. The scholar makes it clear that “no member of the Outer Circle speaks RP,” and upholds Global Journal of Transformative Education (2024) Vol 4 Kouam, EFL Teaching & Learning in Cameroon 38 that “even if he could, he would lack those mannerisms distinct of a native speaker”. In the same vein, Todd (1982, 289) had earlier observed that “virtually no Af- rican speaks RP.” It should be noted that even in Britain, RP features are now very scarce as research shows that less than 3% of the British population now uses RP in its pure form. Despite this literature contradicting teachers’ statement that they teach Standard British English, it was important to seek empirical evidence through classroom realities. The EFL teaching scenario in Cameroon Classroom observation involved ten EFL classes, five of which were conducted by Anglophone teachers and the other five by Francophone teachers. It ensued from the ten classes attended that Levis’ (2005) Native- ness and Intelligibility principles are two paradigms holding sway in the Cameroonian English language teaching industry nowadays. It was so obvious to note that English language teachers with an Anglophone background are mostly guided by the Intelligibility Principle and insist on the local CamE while those with a Francophone background are mostly guided by the Nativeness Principle, despite on-going signals that the promotion of native English models in Cameroon is not yielding the expected fruits. Anglophone EFL teachers’ focus An appraisal of what constitutes the target in EFL teaching situations for each of the two categories of English language teachers that were observed showed that Anglophone EFL teachers’ efforts are aimed at de- veloping learners’ communicative skills through a ped- agogic model which enables them to understand and to be understood by other English-speaking users. These are teachers who are basically trained to serve as ESL teachers. They proved to be more attuned to the pro- motion of educational practices that favour a realistic, pragmatic and attainable speech model to the learners. Without forfeiting intelligibility, they train learners to speak English as naturally as they speak their Cameroo- nian first languages. Francophone EFL teachers’ focus These are Francophones trained in Bilingual series to teach English to other Francophone Cameroonians. Classroom observation demonstrated that their ob- jective is geared towards the attainment of native or native-like speech. They pretend to be teaching nothing but native English. However, observation showed that their attempts to approximate these Inner Circle Englishes rather lead them to hypercorrection. For instance, (instead of ) was provided by a Francophone EFL teacher as the Ameri- can English pronunciation of module one. In the same vein, (instead of ) was brandished by another Francophone EFL teacher as the SBE rendition of reject. The phonological rendition of th in words such as this and mathematics are other glaring examples that were observed, as the sequence was hypercorrectly ar- ticulated by Francophone EFL teachers as /v/ and /f/, respectively, to the detriment of their SBE counterparts /ð/ and /θ/ and their CamE forms /d/ and /t/. This is further evidence that the increasingly high percentage of hypercorrect speech features in Cameroon Franco- phone English is as a result of Francophone EFL teach- ers’ Ukolonia mindset which vividly depicts neo-colo- nialism as it cherishes and idealises what is foreign but despises and rejects what is local. General observations While Anglophone EFL teachers simply ensure that their learners speak English in a way that is intel- ligible to the listeners, their Francophone colleagues are interested in ensuring that the learner articulates words following Standard British English and American English patterns. Interestingly, the pronunciation model provided by the teachers themselves does not, in most cases, reflect the variety they are struggling to teach. The learner finally does not gain much because the efforts to sound British or American limit their fluency significantly. This could explain why Francophone Cam- eroonians are very good at English grammar but avoid speaking due to the fear to make mistakes (Safotso, 2022). In fact, they are very often interrupted by their Francophone EFL teachers who constantly come in to “correct” their English pronunciation. It also transpired from classroom observation that Francophone students trained by Francophone EFL teachers are far less fluent in English and, consequently, less officially bilingual than the few trained by Anglo- phone teachers, whose target is actual communication. A palpable example came from a speech exercise done in two Première classes in GBHS Obala where learners were expected to say the sentences aloud stressing the words in bold so as to give the sentence the rhythm or cadence it deserves. While the Premiere D1 learners, taught by an Anglophone EFL teacher, could easily and fluently repeat the sentences following their teacher’s Global Journal of Transformative Education (2024) Vol 4 Kouam, EFL Teaching & Learning in Cameroon 39 local English accent, those of Premiere D2 found it very difficult arriving at a pronunciation their Francophone trainer was imposing on them. In most cases, Franco- phone teachers’ speech was flawed by hypercorrec- tion due to their unsuccessful attempts to respect SBE segmental and suprasegmental rules. At the same time, learners, whose speech organs could not get rid of the sound systems of French and their mother tongues, could not afford to emulate the teacher whose own efforts to sound native were actually fruitless. For the sentence, It would be great if all Cameroonians could have access to the internet, (Interactions in English 1eres, p. 258) for instance, the Francophone EFL teach- er provided the following as reference pronunciation: It would be if all access to internet. On the other hand, the digest Cameroon English pronunciation the Anglophone EFL teacher pro- vided to her learners enabled the latter to repeat with a high degree of fluency. The glaring contrast characteriz- ing the teaching approaches used by Francophone and Anglophone EFL teachers led to the scrutiny of their training programmes. The Syllabus for Teacher Education The syllabus used in training EFL teachers in Cameroonian higher teacher training colleges shows some significant differences from the one used to train ESL teachers. The main contrast arises from the fact that while ESL student teachers have all their courses in English from Level One to Level Five (except one French course that is supposed to upgrade their French proficiency), their EFL counterparts have 50% of their curriculum content constituted of French subjects and the other 50% being made of English subjects. Looking at the English subjects, both ESL and EFL student teachers have in common a course entitled English Speech and Usage, which focuses on SBE. But unlike their ESL mates, EFL student teachers are not taught a key course entitled World Englishes, which aims at exposing the learners to the different varieties of English. The course promotes indigenized English- es, contrarily to English Speech and Usage, which only provides drills on Standard British English and, to an extent, American English. No drill on CamE or any other local variety is thus provided to prospective Fran- cophone EFL teachers. The correlation between the course entitled World Englishes and the acceptance or rejection of the New Englishes such a Cameroon English cannot be belaboured. It is a course which values the New Englishes and highlights their place within the World Englishes arena. Consequently, the course contributes to build self confidence in New Englishes speakers, thereby making them proud of the indige- nized Englishes. Such a course is likely to help Fran- cophone EFL student teachers get rid of the Ukolonia (slave) mentality (Bokamba, 2007, 2011) which highly characterizes them. Needless pointing out that while in secondary and high school, most of the present student teachers ac- quired from their own Francophone EFL teachers what was fallaciously presented to them as native English. The same fallacy is, unfortunately, reinforced through exposure to the course entitled English Speech and Usage whose sole aim is to acquaint prospective EFL and ESL teachers with Inner Circle English norms. The presence of this course in the curriculum serving in the training of English language teachers is due to the fact that it is a traditional native English variety, namely Standard British English, which continues to serve as reference model for English language teaching practic- es across Cameroon despite the fact that researchers have been raising an alarm to denounce a policy which promotes a language variety which is not at the reach of Cameroonians and cannot actually convey Cameroonian experiences. From the numerous research endeavours carried out to assess Cameroonians’ familiarity with the British variety of English, it occurs that they sig- nificantly lack the mastery of this model. Even teachers who are called upon to teach it have proven beyond any reasonable doubt to be ignorant of it. This has led to publication titles such as When the blind lead the blind: The fallacy of promoting Standard British English in Cameroon (Ngefac, 2012). The absence of EFL teachers’ exposure to World Englishes can only lead to the situation prevailing in the Francophone English-speaking community in Camer- oon nowadays, where speakers twist their tongues to sound British or American in their English speech and make clear attempts to avoid uttering features that associate them with the local Cameroon English. Unfor- tunately for them, it is so obvious that even when they successfully articulate some isolated words or sentenc- es in accordance with traditional native English norms, difficulties handling aspects such as intonation and connected speech quickly expose their masquerade and reveal to the limelight that they are simply trying their hand in something their speech organs are unfamiliar with. The decolonization of Francophone EFL teachers’ linguistic mindset thus appears as a necessity. Global Journal of Transformative Education (2024) Vol 4 Kouam, EFL Teaching & Learning in Cameroon 40 The urgency of decolonising Francophone EFL teachers’ mindset Francophone EFL learners in Cameroon are paying a huge price for the colonial linguistic indoctrination subtly led by such enemies of indigenised Englishes as Prator (1968), Quirk (1985) and Honey (1997), who saw the promotion of the New Englishes as a heresy. Looking at the current English language scenario, how sustainable can Quirk’s (1985) call for the use of a “sin- gle monochrome standard form that looks as good on paper as it sounds in speech’’ actually be today? What would Honey (1997) think of his own declaration that if speakers of English in the New Nations create their own standard, they are likely to be excluded from the global scene because they cannot exercise the same level of competence as other members of the world En- glish-speaking community? These advocates of a New Englishes genocide thought they could continuously impose Inner Circle English norms all over the world. It is left to Outer and Expanding Circle users to realise that they outnumber the traditional native speakers by far and this numerical advantage must permit them to set and follow norms which capture the cosmology of the specific non-native English-speaking countries. Unfortunately, some non-native speakers (e.g., Franco- phone Cameroonians) continue to be at the forefront to combat the Englishes that carry the colours of their sociocultural realities. The following report by Platt, Weber & Ho (1984, 170) is a clear indication that the decolonisation of many non-native English speakers’ linguistic mindset is a matter of utmost importance. The scholars indicate that in a workshop on the English language in Singa- pore, a speaker with a conspicuous Singaporean accent passionately affirmed: “I speak RP.” Surprisingly, his statement rather provoked laughter and protest from the British audience. Such behaviours make one won- der why speakers of the New Englishes undervalue the varieties of English that they speak and rather want to identify themselves with foreign models. Ngefac (2012) attempts an explanation to this state of affairs, hypoth- esising that the reason which has influenced some Cameroonians to change their black skin using chemi- cal products in order to look white like their ex-colonial masters is the same reason at the base of their negative attitude towards the languages that are rooted in the sociocultural and sociolinguistic realities of their coun- try. He upholds that such people believe the greatness of Cameroon lies “in the ability of Cameroonians to prove that they master ex-colonial languages as much as, or even more than traditional native speakers of the languages” themselves. When will Africans actually realise that “when an African speaks American English, the credit goes to America,” as rightly pointed out by Micheal Ndemanu in May 2023 during the Second World Conference on Transformative Education held in Ghana? There are many Anglophone Cameroonians who successfully carry out their daily activities worldwide using their indigenised CamE accent. Just like no language can por- tray one’s identity better than their mother tongues, no English variety can depict the sociocultural realities of a new English setting or express the ways and thoughts of its users better than the local variety. It is equally ob- vious that it is only through their native or indigenised languages that individuals can actually showcase their highest degree of creativity, self-confidence and perfor- mance. What can justify the persistence of colonialist visions like Simo Bobda’s (2004) equating the language policy applied by the British in Cameroon during the colonial period to a linguistic apartheid, and advocating “not just English per se, but Standard British English” in Cameroon? This is a vision which takes on the British administration for keeping Africans away from “good English”. For its author, the British should have drilled Africans on Standard British English. Africans in gener- al and Francophone Cameroonians in particular should stop seeing native English speech as more prestigious, correct and intelligible than their local varieties. Doing so is ignoring Kachru’s (1992, 67) call on all English users around the world to “realise that this new role of English [as an international language] puts a burden on those who use it as their first language, as well as on those who use it as their second language.” That is to say, it is not the duty of non-native speakers alone to speak English in a way that ensures international intelligibility. Francophone EFL teachers in Cameroon should be acquainted with this and should equally think of some powerful declarations from such post- colonial thinkers as Achebe who were able, as far back as in the 1960s, to perceive indigenized varieties of English as real forces to reckon with. They should be aware that the English language has become a global resource and the possession of every community that in any way uses it regardless of what any other individ- ual or community may feel or think about the matter (McArthur, 1999). In a world dominated by the West, Africa must strive to get its own share through fights of various Global Journal of Transformative Education (2024) Vol 4 Kouam, EFL Teaching & Learning in Cameroon 41 natures, including linguistic struggles. It is no news that language is power. American imperialism has been very successful thanks to the spread of the English language. If Africa cannot totally rely on indigenous languages to face the rest of the world, its indiginised English varieties can play a major role. Kouam (in production) strongly believes that Cameroonian and African natural resources are appealing enough to America and Europe. If the indigenised African varieties of English appear to be the sole means of communication through which discussions regarding these resources can be held, the Western World will not resist. They will embrace indigenised African English models. Francophone EFL teachers’ mindset, as it stands, is contrary to African transformative development initiatives and visions. It must be reshaped through decolonisation. The best method to deconstruct and reconstruct Francophone EFL teachers’ English linguistic mindset in Cameroon remains the teaching of the course entitled World En- glishes to EFL student teachers. The teaching of such a course will definitely influence their attitudes towards indigenised English varieties. Fewer and fewer studies now brandish traditional native speakers of English as sole norm-providers and non-native speakers as followers of the established norms. Instead, most works (e.g., Levis, 2005) require that the Nativeness Principle, which used to prevail in the teaching of English pronunciation in both native and non-native contexts, should now pave the way to the Intelligibility Principle, which best addresses all contexts of second or foreign language teaching/learn- ing. Francophone EFL teachers in Cameroon should follow this principle which simply requires learners to be intelligible. Therefore, language policy makers in Cameroon should recommend mainstream Cameroon English for both ESL and EFL teaching to the detriment of Standard British English. Studies have shown that CamFE contains many features of CamE and very few features of SBE even though CamFE speakers paradox- ically display a very negative attitude towards CamE and a very positive one towards SBE. The codification process of CamE is far advanced. The legitimate fea- tures of its educated variety as well as features that can be considered as mistakes and excluded are well known. More textbooks need to be designed based on its educated variety to enable a smooth teaching of this local English model. Conclusion Although English is mainly a colonial heritage for Cameroonians and other Africans, postcolonial nations should develop pride for its local varieties, as they are emblematic of our sociocultural realities. As for now, there is almost no alternative to English as a global lingua franca. It would be fallacious to think that a Cameroonian indigenous language can guarantee the instrumental role that English fulfils today. The issue is thus that of the variety that should be promoted. In the Cameroonian context, CamE should be the target in ELT rather than Standard British English. If the Camer- oonian EFL teaching stakeholders (who are mostly of a Francophone background) emulate their fellow Anglo- phone colleagues in the teaching of an accent which is at the reach of the learners and is rooted in their sociolinguistic and sociocultural realities, Francophone Cameroonian learners will develop greater competenc- es in oral communication. The exposure of prospective Francophone EFL teachers to World Englishes, as is already the case with ESL teachers, can seriously play in favour of this. The present situation which is charac- terized by the unattainable objective of approximating native Englishes ignites frustrations in the students, as they remain unable to communicate actively in the lan- guage. Also, embracing CamE rather than SBE can only reinforce national integration. There is thus a necessity to join Wa Thiongo (1986) in his call for a decoloniza- tion of the mind. Levis’ (2005) Intelligibility Principle should also be the watchword in the Cameroonian EFL teaching industry nowadays given that the Nativeness Principle which has so far been followed by Franco- phone EFL teachers simply leads to hypercorrection, a phenomenon which was observed to be compromising Francophone learners’ ability to speak English naturally and fluently. References Achebe, C. (1965). English and the African writer. Tran- sition, 4(18), 27-30. Atechi, S. N. (2015). English and French in Cameroon today: Revisiting a previous statement. Internation- al Journal of Language Studies, 9(1), 75-90. ISSN: 2157-4898; EISSN: 2157-4901. Bokamba, E. G. (2007). Multilingual policies in African public domains. In Achimbe, E. (Ed.): Identity Con- struction in Postcolonial Multilingual Spaces. Newcas- tle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Bokamba, E. G. (2011). Ukolonia in African language policies and practices. In Selected Proceedings of the 40th Annual Conference on African Linguistics, (pp. 146-167). Cascadilla Proceedings Project. Global Journal of Transformative Education (2024) Vol 4 http://www.lingref.com/cpp/acal/40/abstract2572.html http://www.lingref.com/cpp/acal/40/abstract2572.html Kouam, EFL Teaching & Learning in Cameroon 42 Bolton, K., Kachru, B., Kachru, Y., & Nelson, C. L. (2006). The Handbook of World Englishes. Varieties of World Englishes, 289-312. Blackwell Publishing. Crystal, D. (2003). English as a Global Language, (2nd ed). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Echu, G. (2003). The language question in Cameroon. Linguistik Online, 18, 19-33. 1/04 ISSN 1615-3014. Eberhard, D. M., Simons G. F., & Fennig, C. D. (2023) Ethnologue: Languages of the World, [21st Ed.]. SIL International, USA. Firth, J. R. (1964). The Tongues of Men and Speech. London: Oxford University Press. Language and Lan- guage Learning Series. Honey, J. (1997). Language is Power: The Story of Stan- dard English and its Enemies. London: Faber and Faber. Kachru, B. (1985). Standards, codification and xocio- linguistic realism: The English language in the Outer Circle. In R. Quirk & Widdowson, H. G. (Eds.), English in the World: Teaching and Learning the Language and Literatures (pp. 11-36). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kachru, B. (1986). The Alchemy of English: The Spread, Function and Models of Non-Native Englishes. Oxford: Pergamon Press. Kachru, B. (1992). World Englishes: Approaches, issues and resources. Language Teaching, 25(1), 1-14. Kouam, C. (2022). Hypercorrection in Cameroon Fran- cophone English Speech. In Ngefac, A. (Ed.), Aspects of Cameroon Englishes. Cambridge Scholars Publish- ing. pp157-173. Kouam, C. (in press). The Linguistic Mindset of An- glophone and Francophone Users of English in Cameroon. In Ngefac, A., Neba, D. C. and Ndemanu, M. T. (eds.). Language, Literature and Education for the Development of Postcolonial Africa. Bloomsbury Publishing Kramsch, C. (1999). Global and local identities in the contact zone. In Gnutzmann, C. (Ed.), Teaching and Learning English as a Global Language: Native and Non-native Perspectives (pp. 131-143). Tubingen: Stauffenburg-Verl. Labov, W. (1966). The Social Stratification of English in New York City. Washington, D. C.: Center for Applied Linguistics. Levis, J. M. (2005). Changing contexts and shifting par- adigms in pronunciation teaching. TESOL Quarterly, 39(3), 369-377. McArthur, T. (1999). English Today. Cambridge: Cam- bridge University Press. Ndemanu, M. T. (2023). Opening Remarks from the Chairman. The 2nd World Conference on Transfor- mative Education, Cape Coast, Ghana, May 27, 2023. Ngefac, A. (2011). When the blind lead the blind: The fallacy of promoting standard British English accent in Cameroon. Journal of Language Teaching and Re- search, 2(1), 40-44. Ngefac, A. (2012). From skin colour mutilation to tongue rejection: Cameroonians’ attitudes towards their local tongues. In Echu, G. (2012). Fifty Years of Official Bilingualism (1961-2001). Harmattan: Paris, 163-191. Ngefac, A. (2022). Introduction: Aspects of Cameroon En- glishes. In Aspects of Cameroon Englishes. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. pp1-14. Platt, J., Weber, H. and Ho, M. L. (1984). The New En- glishes. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Prator, C. (1968). The British heresy in TESL. In J. A. Fishman, C. A. Ferguson, & Gupta, J. D. (Eds.), Lan- guage Problems in Developing Nations. New York: John Wiley. Quirk, R. (1985). The English language in a global con- text. English in the world: Teaching and learning the language and literatures, 16, 17-21. Safotso, G. T. (2018). A Study of the Phonological Fea- tures of Cameroon Francophone English. Saabrünck- en: Scholars’ Press. Safotso, G. T. (2022). Cameroon Francophone English in Public Speeches and on Audio-Visual Media. In A. Ngefac (Ed.). Aspects of Cameroon Englishes. Cam- bridge Scholars Publishing, 148-156. Simo Bobda, A. (2004). Linguistic apartheid: English language policy in Africa. English Today, 77, 20 (1), 19-26. Simo Bobda, A. (2013). The emergence of a standardiz- ing Cameroon Francophone English pronunciation in Cameroon. In Nils-Lennard Johannesson et al. (2013 ed.), Of Butterflies and Birds, of Dialects and Genres. Stockholm: US-AB, pp. 289-301. Todd, L. (1982). The English language in West Africa. In Bailey, R. & Görlach, M, (Eds.), English as a World Language (pp. 281-305). Ann Arbor: Michigan Press. Wa Thiongo, N. (1986). Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature. Heinemann Education. Clement Kouam (kouamclement@gmail.com) is a part- time lecturer at the University of Yaounde I in Cameroon. Author