The impact of the Special Bilingual Education Program on the French Language Speaking and Writing Skills of Anglophone Students in Cameroon: A Case Study of the GCE Advanced Level Special Bilingual Education French Paper

Since the reunification of the British Southern Cameroons with the French East Cameroon in 1961 which saw the birth of the Federal Republic of Cameroon, frantic efforts have been made to foster national unity through the promotion of English-French official language bilingualism policy in school. The latest effort in this direction is the creation in 2009 of a late partial immersion program dubbed, the Special Bilingual Education Program (SBEP). The program aims to train bilingual young Cameroonians, capable of demonstrating mastery of English and French irrespective of their educational sub-system of origin. Drawing from the outcomes level of Spolsky, Green, and Read’s (1976) model for the description, analysis and evaluation of bilingual education, this paper examines the impact of the Special Bilingual Education Program on the development of the French language speaking and writing skills of students at the General Certificate of Education (GCE) Advanced Level Special Bilingual Education French. The analysis of data gotten from interviews with SBEP teachers and from GCE Advanced Level Special Bilingual Education French Subject Reports revealed that since 2016, the Special Bilingual education program has had a greater impact on the development of the French language speaking skills of Anglophone students than on their writing skills in French. In order to improve on learners’ speaking and writing skills in French, a blueprint based on the collaboration between teachers of French and those of content subjects has been recommended, amongst other measures.