[lg policy] Algerian Students Are Victims of the Country’s Language Confusion

[Harold Schiffman]

Algerian Students Are Victims of the Country’s Language ConfusionRim Hayat
Chaif / 24 Sep 2015

[image: University of Tlemcen via Commons Wikimedia]
<http://www.al-fanarmedia.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Tlemcen-Un..jpg>

University of Tlemcen via Commons Wikimedia

TLEMCEN, Algeria—Asma Medjaoui, a sixth-year medical student at the
University of Tlemcen has always struggled with French. Unfortunately for
her and other students, French is the language of higher education in
Algeria.

Medjaoui said adjusting to reading, writing and speaking in French since
high school has been difficult for her. As a result, the first months of
medical school were a struggle.

“The first few months of university were not easy for me,” she said. “I was
ashamed to speak in Arabic in class, to ask the professor questions in
Arabic.”

Medjaoui and a large number of her fellow university students in Algeria
struggle to pursue their scientific studies because after studying in
Arabic in primary and secondary school, all scientific specialties in
university are taught in French. As a result many repeat the year or drop
out of school.

“Courses are all in French, the teachers do not even say a word in Arabic,”
said Mimouna El Hadj Mimoun, a first-year medical student, who took French
lessons at a private school during her last year of high school, to help
her get by.

She like many students studied before graduating or in the summer before
the new academic year at one of the many language schools created to help
these students.

“I am preparing now. I have to acquire a strong enough level to pass my
medical studies,” said Marwan Hadji, a student who just graduated from
Lycee Daoud Mohamed from high school, and will be studying medicine at the
University of Tlemcen.

In spite of the additional work and expense, students say they realize they
are stuck in a self-perpetuating system. “This is an important language for
an Algerian doctor because everything is written in French: orders, patient
records, etc.,” said Asma Medjaoui, a sixth-year medical student at the
University of Tlemcen.

But the number of people mastering French in Algeria is declining.

Since the country’s independence from the French in 1962, the language’s
status changed from the first to second official language, being replaced
by Arabic. As a result, many professors were recruited from Egypt and
Syria, where French speakers are not common.

“In the early 1980s, the country’s language policy was to replace French
with Arabic,” said Dr. Tewfik Benghabrite who teaches in the foreign
language faculty at the University of Tlemcen. “Which was normal except
that, instead of valuing it, they proceeded a little awkwardly.”

Since primary and secondary education was switched to Arabic in the 1980’s,
some subjects such as geography, history and science were all taught in
French and therefore students achieved relatively good levels in that
language.

“We* Arabized* all science disciplines such as math, physics, etc. but
higher education did not follow this approach: 80 percent of university
courses are taught in French and as a result, training and documentation
remain in French,” said Benghabrite.

Kalkali Elhadi, who teaches journalism at the University of Algiers, says
the level of French language skills has declined among students because
they are not taught well.

“Today’s French teachers are victims of a university education that was not
good enough,” he said. “They were trained by unqualified teachers because
of nepotism and corruption.”

Algeria has gone through many years of soul searching in terms of its
identity and what languages to teach in, use, and in one context. Still,
the overall prevalent ideology in Algeria today of Arabism makes it almost
impossible to impose more French curriculum in primary and secondary
schools addressing the gap in science teaching to solve this problem.

“For our young students to better master French, it would take a very
committed political decision,” said Benghabrite. “It should be that
professors and students are given an enriching curriculum and serious
textbooks.”

http://www.al-fanarmedia.org/2015/09/algerian-students-are-victims-of-the-countrys-language-confusion/


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