FOSSILIZATION IN LEARNERS’ PERFORMANCE: AN EVALUATION OF TERMINAL LAW STUDENTS AT UNIVERSITY OF LUBUMBASHI (DR CONGO)

Authors: Nshindi-germain Mulamba, Tommy Kayamba Badye & Abdon Lumbala Mubikayi

ABSTRACT

This paper investigates into the communicative competence and performance of university leavers at the Faculty of Law, University of Lubumbashi. It is at the same time an evaluation of the five-year Transversal English curriculum to assess how much improvement the time variable has brought to students’ learning. This programme was the educational authorities’ response to the researchers’ claims for learners’ much more exposure to English.

The results are mixed. While the good learners brilliantly succeeded, the poor ones could not even reply to ‘good morning’ appropriately. Fossilization concerns all the levels of language. The knowledge of the local culture of exams, however, reveals poor learners’ heavy reliance on cheating as a misunderstood African solidarity (Muchiri et al. 1999) among students to survive.

Hence, suggestions of additional variables to the time factor are made to make students actually learn English.

Keywords: fossilized English, curriculum evaluation, communicative competence, poor language learners, African solidarity, Transversal English

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