French as the Teaching Language of Life and Earth Sciences in Moroccan School: what’s the Teachers’ Opinion?

Abstract

The strategic vision for the recent reform in Morocco included the diversification of teaching languages by teaching scientific subjects in French. This starts in pilot’s class teaching scientific subjects in the French language. In this context, the language for teaching Life and Earth Sciences (LES) was changed from Arabic to French. This linguistic change in teaching LES aims to make the learner able to communicate in French in addition to Arabic, and to put an end to the linguistic problem that currently exists when entering universities, that teach these subjects in the French language. In this survey we interested to teachers’ opinions in order to get acquainted with their opinions in teaching Life and Earth Sciences in French for the middle school, and collecting suggestions and solutions to overcome the problem observed in classrooms. We used a questionnaire as an investigative tool for data collection distributed to life and earth sciences’ teachers of middle school. The findings of this research shows that teaching this subject in French forms an obstacle to academic achievement, and classroom interaction, whether in the rural or urban areas. This is due to reasons related to the poor language level of students, the absence of teacher continuous training in teaching the subject in French, and the weakness of the means adopted to make this change in the language of instruction. Among the solutions that have been proposed and used to overcome this educational phenomenon is the preparation of a support plan that includes a program consisting of activities targeting the communicative aspect for learners in French, as well as other activities aimed at providing the learner with skills such as analysis, description, observation and conclusion, while translating scientific words from French into Arabic.