Decolonizing the teaching of foreign languages in multicultural communities: a case study of the teaching of English in Togo (West Africa)

3.1 Theoretical framework

The study uses Vygotsky’s (1978) social constructivism theory. The theory propounds that language and culture play important roles both in human intellectual development and in how humans perceive the world. It advocates that knowledge is built from how people interact with each other based on their culture and their society at large.

Social constructivism is a category of cognitive constructivism that focuses on the collaborative nature of learning under the leadership of a facilitator or in collaboration with other learners (Powell and Kalina 2009). Social constructivism is a learning theory that sees learning as a social process where learners work together by engaging in group activities for successful and meaningful learning to take place under the guidance of the teacher (Akpan et al. 2020). This guidance goes beyond the classroom situation and includes the designing of working materials.

Moreover, in social constructivism, students’ “understanding is shaped not only through adaptive encounters with the physical world but through interactions between people with the world that is not merely physical and apprehended by the senses, but cultural, meaningful and significant, and made so primarily by language” (Akpan et al. 2020, p. 51). In other words, this theory fights for the adaptation of the learning process through linguistic and extra-linguistic processes. Since social constructivism militates for the shift of the responsibility of knowledge acquisition from the teacher to the student through mediation and also the transformation of the student from a passive listener to an active participant and a co-worker of knowledge among co-learners, it suits for the analysis of the data on teaching English as a foreign language in a multicultural context.

3.2 Data collection methods

This study used a mixed data collection method. It employed a structured questionnaire as a data collection method which was administered to a total of 320 students selected from the two public universities (University of Lomé and University of Kara) in the Department of English as well as eight English language Lecturers in the same department.

The questionnaire used in this study consisted of 12 statements based on cultural factors. Both linguistic and extra-linguistic statements were adapted from the attitude motivation test battery (AMTB) originally developed by Gardner (1985) and the Likert scale where respondents were asked to react to many statements such as ‘Teaching English language by using local proverbs, stories, folktales will make students more attracted to English.’ Respondents had to say their opinion by choosing among ‘Strongly Agree’, ‘Agree’, ‘Neutral’, ‘Disagree’ and ‘Strongly Disagree’. These items were designed to unveil the level of inclusion of Togolese local realities in the teaching of the English language in Togo. The study used also interviews and classroom observations to access English language teaching and learning activities in Togo. Data was evaluated and thematically tagged.

The choice of the university as the data collection area was based on its responsibility to train prospective teachers, reviewers and cultural mediators. The inclusion of local ingredients in the training will allow future university degree holders to impact positively their communities. The observation concerned three courses: Techniques of written and oral English, Translation, and Linguistics. Each classroom was visited three times and full notes of the language and the socio-cultural resources used in the teaching of English language were taken into account. These notes were analyzed to come out with useful findings. The university classroom observation was very important for this study because it allowed me to be exposed to English language teachers’ activities and strategies in handling classes. The classroom observation was also relevant because it helped me find out the different aspects or components of language that were taken into account in teaching English as a foreign language. Finally, because of their capacity to create a “rich source of data which provide access to how people account for their experiences” (Silverman 2006, p. 148), interviews were also needed so as to gain participants’ inside opinion on what they do and the reason why they do it.

The analysis of the questionnaire was performed by the database using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) program. The analysis of the survey data and the classroom observations have prompted some major findings concerning specific factors in the change of paradigm in the teaching of English as foreign language in Togo.

4.1 Learning English as foreign language in a multicultural setting

Foreign languages have often been taught to learners from different cultural backgrounds in the same classroom. In these circumstances, students and lecturers may have various opinions about learning a foreign language. The first two statements (see Appendix A) were intended to check respondents’ perception of the teaching/learning a foreign language. The results of statements (1) and (2) reveal that while 64.9 % of the respondents reported that learning English as a foreign language in Togo is remarkably similar for all learners no matter what other language they speak, 63.0 % of the respondents found that it is not easy for a student to learn a foreign language.

These results show on the one hand that Togolese English as a foreign language learners are taught the same skills through the same activities and teaching methods without taking into account the different learning environments and learners’ cultural backgrounds. On the other hand, the results indicate the learners’ difficulties to master English because they are shaped with the same format regardless of their background. The classroom observations corroborate the results of the survey. Indeed, in the different classrooms, the same teaching methods of the different learning activities were observed. In the same vein, according to one interviewee, “we cannot do otherwise because the reading material does not give room for changes in the teaching methods.” The fact that teaching English as a foreign language in Togo does not take into account the different cultural backgrounds makes the learning difficult and does not boost learners’ willingness and interest in the language. In order to address successfully this challenge, Klippel (1994) believes that in the teaching of a foreign language, the process of seeking for national and cultural identity should not be limited to primary school age. According to Klippel (1994, pp. 59–60), “It is the task of foreign language teacher training, mainly at the universities, to establish courses of study where the students are prepared for this kind of English language teaching.” Indeed, in Togo prospective English teachers are recruited after a Bachelor degree from a department of English at the two public universities. There is need for a revisitation of the teaching material to help students feel at ease while learning the foreign language.

4.2 Learning English as a foreign language through local material culture

Material culture is the aspect of culture that can be seen and handled. It refers to the physical objects, resources, and spaces that people use to define their culture (Henslin 2013). From this definition, material culture in foreign language teaching is considered as cultural aspects in the language learning sphere whereby elements such as local housing, geographical factors, hunting, animal husbandry, agricultural activities are taken into account because they are proven useful in the multicultural language learning.

Statements (3) to (6) were intended to check the level of inclusion of Togolese material culture in the English as foreign language learner’s working materials and activities. According to the results of statements (3) and (4), while 94.6 % of the respondents reported that English teachers in Togo do not share information about local housing systems and geographical factors, 94.8 % of the same participants said that English learning materials in Togo do not include local culinary system. As far as the results of (5) and (6) are concerned, when 92.8 % of the respondents agreed with the statement that states that local hunting system, animal husbandry, agricultural activities are not included in the English learning program in Togo, 92.4 % reported that the inclusion of Togolese culinary, geographical, housing, agricultural aspect in English reading materials is important. A close look at the aforementioned results indicates that local material culture is not visible in the English language teaching and learning activities in Togo. The exclusion of these local cultural elements does not help learners be fully committed to the learning of English as a foreign language.

The analysis of the classroom and material observation show that courses of ‘Techniques of Written English’ taught to students in search of a Bachelor’s degree in the English language are mainly based on tests such as the Internet-based Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL^® iBT), the Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC), the Cambridge English Qualification tests and other international tests. As far as topics in ‘Techniques of Oral English’ are concerned, they are multivariate and deal with either specific themes such as the war in Ukraine, first day at Université de Lomé or Université de Kara in Togo or broad themes such as online courses; western marriage; social networks; the importance of English; accidents; friendships; illnesses such malaria, diabetes, cancer; favorite movie. Moreover, while the course of Linguistics is mainly based on English language, translated passages are internet sources which are not related to any Togolese cultural elements. The analysis of the learning resources and classroom observations showed that course contents are mainly made up of cultural, physical, geographical, and even ideological elements different from the Togolese local background. English learners would be attracted to working materials that deal with local realities such as housing art, terrace farming on mountains and animal husbandry in Kabye land or cooking stews such as ‘gboma’ or ‘adémè’ in Ewe land. As Balogun and Woldegiorgis (2023, p. 110) put, “if language affects the way we represent ontology and given the distinction between Western and African ontologies, then the use of the former’s language to represent the latter’s ontology incites a fundamental problem of loss of identity.” Though Balogun and Woldegiorgis support the development of a curriculum based on African identity through the use of African languages, today’s world of globalization calls rather for a hybridization that results in the adaptation of African realities into the teaching and learning of European languages.

Besides, a teaching method was carried out in order to find out the necessity to include local cultural factors in the teaching of English as a foreign language in Togo. Consequently, two groups of students were taught the same Techniques of written and oral course but with different materials. The first category of students was taught the English language using materials based on Western values such as weather, history, family, occupation, and politics and the second group was taught using Togolese cultural elements. The respondents from the first group commented on how blocking the exclusion of Togolese realities was for their clear understanding of texts and influenced their attitude towards the learning of English. However, the second group of students that was taught English using elements such as Togolese farm activities, family life, clothing and culinary art were more enthusiastic and inclined to learn English language.

The teaching of the techniques of written and oral English is supposed to equip English department students with the necessary skills and tools for the transmission of the language to future learners. From the above results, a decolonization in the teaching of English through its adaptation to Togolese realities is relevant to change learners’ perception of English as a foreign language. In the same line, Kramsch (1993, p. 34) puts, “foreign language pedagogy has been increasingly aware of the need to teach language in context.” Moreover, Kramsch (1993) thinks that in the language learning process, there should not be any idea of a ‘target culture’ to which a language should be linked. Still, instead, any language user has this opportunity to create a cultural space in which communicative practices are not subject to any norm. This opens up new horizons to foreign language teaching/learning through adaptation of cultures, contextualization, and cultural inclusion. For Balogun and Woldegiorgis (2023, p. 112), “what it means for African universities to decolonize is to prioritize African needs in the design and implementation of their curricula, research and pedagogical activities.”

4.3 Integrating local non-material culture into English language teaching

According to Giddens and Sutton (2014, p. 269), “culture […] refers to all of the elements of a society’s way of life that are learned, among them language, values, social norms, beliefs, customs and laws.” From this definition, culture has always dealt with the non-material aspects. Indeed, non-material culture refers to the nonphysical ideas that members of a society have about their language, beliefs, customs, values, rules, norms and morals. Consequently, the analyses of the data in this section deal with respondents’ opinion about the inclusion of non-material culture elements such as national language features, local proverbs, stories and folktales, traditional festivals, practices and medicine in the teaching of English in Togo.

Of particular interest in statement (7) is that the teaching of English language in Togo uses national language features (grammar). The results of this statement reveal that 97.6 % of the respondents reported that no national language feature is associated with the teaching of English as a foreign language in Togo. On the other hand, in statement (8), 99 % of the respondents reported that teaching English language through local proverbs, stories and folktales makes language learning less intimidating. As far as the inclusion of aspects of local practices, customs and medicine in English language learning is concerned, 91.2 % of the respondents found that English learners in Togo should be exposed to pictures and icons which depict traditional medicine and practices. From these results, it is obvious that working materials and activities do not take into account Togolese national language features, local proverbs, stories and folktales, and traditional activities and traditional medicine. The classroom observation corroborates the results of the survey for, during this data collection period, no class was observed dealing with activities such as group or pair works, role-plays, writing tasks related to local stories, folktales, proverbs, or traditional festivals and traditional medicine.

The analysis of the above results shows that participants favor the integration of Togolese local proverbs, stories, folktales, local language features, traditional customs, festivals and medicine into the teaching of English language but nothing is yet done. In fact, integrating local proverbs, stories and folklore into English language learning can be beneficial because through a captivating story or folktale from learners’ culture, it can motivate them in learning the language and help them create and write their own stories through poetry and novels. This positive attitude towards the foreign language will surely reduce students’ fear and anxiety and boost their language skills. Moreover, the different language styles, forms and structures found in stories, proverbs and folktales can provide English language learners with necessary materials to be fluent in their everyday communication.

In the same line, the fact that respondents expressed a positive attitude towards the integration of traditional practices, customs and medicine into learning language teaching materials is indicative. Indeed, there are traditional festivals and practices that are well-known and well-appreciated throughout the whole country. Their integration into foreign language learning activities can be a stamina that encourages learners. Consequently, the integration of traditional festivals and practices such as ‘Voodoo’, ‘Evala’, ‘Ekpessosso’, ‘Akpema’, ‘Agbogbozan’ through well designed learning activities can be a true motivation and lead to improved English language knowledge.

From the results in (7), it appears that foreign language teaching in a multicultural context is a matter of negotiation between languages from curriculum development to classroom activities. Hence, the integration of local language features into English language learning refers to the phonetic-phonological, morpho-syntactic and semantic adaptation of local and foreign languages because every language has its own “‘language codes’ that enable a speaker to use their language” (Mooney and Evans 2014, p. 4). According to Mooney and Evans (2014, p. 4), “the building codes in language tell users of the language how to combine different parts of that language. This includes inherent building codes about which sounds and words can be combined together.”

Researches in sociolinguistics have shown that in a language learning class, clashes are likely to take place because of the existence of different cultural backgrounds (Brown 2007). These clashes can be related to the sound system (pronunciation) that may differ from the teacher’s language, the learner’s and the foreign language itself. These clashes call for a phonetic and phonological negotiation because without such a negotiation, foreign language achievement can be hindered. However, the results above imply that local language sound systems are neglected in favor of the only foreign language. English sound system is consequently imposed on learners without comparing and contrasting with local language ones. It is known that even in a monolingual speech production, very often, negotiations between sounds occur in different forms. For example, in some contexts whereby voiceless and voiced sounds stand side by side in English, one of the adjacent sounds assimilates the other to become voiceless or voiced. The assimilation process in this study is a form of negotiation. In this specific context, the voiceless sound negotiates with the voiced so that the latter loses its feature voice to become a voiceless sound and consequently allows an easy production of both sounds.

In the same line, while teaching a foreign language, the sounds of that language are naturally assimilated to the nearest or similar sounds in one’s local language and pronounced accordingly. This causes problems where two or more sounds in the target language (English in our context) are assimilated to one sound in the mother tongue. Learners then cannot hear or make the difference between different-sounding words in the target language. This situation raises a serious issue that needs to be addressed. Practically, due to the fact that adults have a certain knowledge of the phonological system of their first language, it can help or hinder their learning of a foreign language. When the first language phonology does not agree with the foreign language phonology, it can result in interference from the first language to the English language. This is the case of the English interdental phonemes /θ/ and /ð/ that do not exist in any Togolese local languages. The absence of these sounds in Togolese languages often predicts some features of foreign phonological difficulty. In this regard, local language speakers interfere phonologically by using the nearest phonemes /t/ and /d/. For example, instead of /fɑːðə/ for ‘father’ and /θɪŋk/ for ‘think’, they frequently say /fɑːdə/ and /tɪŋk/. With the knowledge of the difference at this phonological level, the classroom activities should consider an adaptation between the learner’s first language phonemes and the foreign language phonemes to avoid interference in the communication.

Besides phonetics and phonology expressed during the pronunciation activity, the negotiation has to deal with word-internal structure and with the arrangement of words and phrases in a specific order. As a matter of fact, while some languages are isolating, others are either agglutinating or fusional or even combining the three of them. Togolese national languages (Ewe and Kabiye) use compounding along with reduplication, triplication, and affixation processes in the formation of new words. More specifically, some languages like Kabiye, a Gur language from the Niger-Congo family have a noun class system, i.e. a phenomenon in which singular and plural nouns are assigned to different noun class agreements. For example, séyʊ (SING.) ‘runner’, séya: (PL.) ‘runners’, kudokú ‘bag’, kudokúŋ ‘bags’, sɛmɪyɛ ‘cricket’, sɛma ‘crickets’, kɛdɛ́ːká ‘handkerchief’, kɛdɛ́ːkásɪ ‘handkerchiefs’ belong to different noun classes whose agreement is done accordingly. On the other hand, languages such as Ewe, a Kwa language from the Niger-Congo family display nearly the same plural agreement system as in English. Indeed, when the plural morpheme -wo is used in Ewe (example: agbalẽ ‘book’, agbalẽwó ‘books’; ɖevi ‘child’, ɖeviwó ‘children), English regular nouns use the plural morpheme -s. From the observation above and the result of the data, in the learning of English as a foreign language in the Togolese context, the teacher and learner face different word morphological challenges given the difference in their local language.