THE USE OF THE FRENCH VERBAL ADJECTIVE BY ANGLOPHONE LEARNERS OF FRENCH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE: A CASE STUDY OF NNAMDI AZIKIWE UNIVERSITY

Abstract

The French verbal adjective (adjectif verbal) is an adjective derived from the French present participle (participe présent). Just like other descriptive adjectives, it qualifies, modifies and describes a noun or pronoun. The verbal adjective being a derivative of the present participle is in some cases, especially in the masculine form, the same in spelling with the present participle. The French verbal adjective is rarely used by learners and even when they make use it, it is used wrongly because of the similarities in spelling with the French present participle. This research therefore is aimed at identifying the problems encountered by the English-speaking learners of the French language in their usage of the French verbal adjective, with the aim of proposing solutions to address the problem. To do this, we collected data from the examination in the course FRE 221: Advanced French Grammar I, taken by 80 second year students of the department of Modern European Languages, Nnamdi Azikiwe University. After analysing the results, we discovered that 
these learners have difficulties in their usage of the French verbal adjective. These difficulties were due in part to the negative transfer from English and the similarities that exist between the French verbal adjective and the French present participle. These problems include: problem of linguistic interference, agreement, spelling and distinction between the functions of the French verbal 
adjective and that of present participle. We therefore propose, among other things, that an important place in teaching be given to conscious exposure to the French grammatical structures in relation to that of English. We also suggest that a foreign language class should not be over populated in order to give room for effective teaching and learning.