Conceptualization of French Foreign Language Aspects, Devoid in Learners’ Prior Language (Kiswahili): The Case of Past Tense Learning

: In a multilingual society, the mother tongue can serve as a model to facilitate the learning and teaching of any foreign language, provided that they share some common characteristics. On the other hand, the difference between them is considered as a barrier, because they do not share common linguistic features (Punchihetti, 2007). Since French is a foreign language in Tanzania, and most Tanzanians learn it after having mastered Kiswahili (mother tongue) and secondly, English (medium of instruction for tertiary levels). It is very logical to hypothesize that learners are con-fronted with new French aspects, different from their prior languages. According to the National Council of Examinations reports of 2019 to 2022 in Tanzania (NECTA), the majority of high school candidates do not entirely comprehend French past tense questions. Regarding this re-port, we aimed at looking into the learning and teaching of French past tense (passé composé). Since languages are not very similar, this descriptive study describes how the learners deal with the new French language aspects, different from the languages they have known e.g. Kiswahili. The research answers the questions, what are the challenging aspects of French past tense for learners whose mother tongue is Kiswahili? And how these learners deal with them. The study is guided by the two theories, namely; inter-language and contrastive analysis. We collected data from high school students from Milambo and Korogwe high schools in Tanzania. The questionnaire and tests were used as instruments to obtain data. Lastly, stratified random sampling technique was helpful in findings. We finally give recommendations for the sake of improving learning and teaching French as a foreign language in Tanzania


Introduction
The primary objective of a language is to communicate with people of the same or different origins and backgrounds.For this reason, learning a foreign language is boldly essential to open new doors and possibilities to communicate with the external world.Leclerc (1989) believes that in their very nature, human beings are unique creatures who can produce unlimited and countless meaningful codes, to satisfy their need to send a message to other beings of their nature.In any communication adventure, the man is firstly exposed in a context of mother tongue (L1), where he naturally acquires the first language.However, after mastering a mother tongue (L1), He finds himself in a linguistic choice, where he chooses whether to learn another language called the second language (L2) or foreign language.Apasu, F. (2018) argues that, the teaching of a foreign langue is done through but not limited to the formal education system, since there are those, who acquire new language in a linguistic context through interaction with speakers.

The problem of the study
The problem of our study is based on the reports of the National Examinations Council of Tanzania (NECTA) (2019 to 2022), of which several important remarks have been noted.One of which being that, learners of French foreign language at high school level are not quite able to understand questions related to the use of the past tense.The reports are too general, that learners had inadequate knowledge to learn French past tense.On the first side of coin, the reports do not say why these learners do not have adequate knowledge the past tense satisfactorily.The question is, is there no any other linguistic perspective to understand this phenomenon?On the other hand, it does not give any solution as an approach to solving the problem.Stating the problem while providing no scientific justification, has led us launch this linguistic research.Despite the persistence and continuity of the same problem in the field of teaching and learning French foreign language for years in Tanzania, no one has carried out a similar study to expose scientific causes.We have observed during our professional carrier that, most learners face difficulties when they confront French past tense aspects, which are devoid in their mother tongue (Kiswahili).This is because these aspects are completely new and foreign to their linguistic intelligence repertoire.Learners whose mother tongue is Kiswahili, experience challenges especially in the face of inherent aspects such as, the use of auxiliaries in French past tense, gender agreements as well as in number agreement.After this observation, to achieve our main goal, we asked ourselves the following questions in order to study the phenomenon.What are the sources of difficulties in learning French past tense?What is the degree and frequency of errors?What are the most complex aspects and why?Finally, what are the initiatives to take into account as a remedy?
The contribution of the study Linguistic interference is an inevitable phenomenon in a multilingual context like Tanzania.Coexisting languages can mutually influence each other.The choice of this study has been motivated by the fact that in Tanzania, there are many speakers whose mother tongue is Kiswahili, the language that has a linguistic pattern, different from that of French.For these speakers, French is learnt after the mastery of mother tongue (L1), Bantu languages, and English (L2).In most cases, Kiswahili as the mother tongue is considered as a model to facilitate learning of other foreign languages.Thus, it is possible for us to deduce that the Swahili-speaking community learn French, while unconsciously or knowingly make a mental translation into their mother tongue, to better understand the concepts.
As it has been suggested by Apasu, F. (2018) that, when learners commerce to attend foreign language classes, they are confronted with absolutely unknown codes.Leclerc (1989, adds that the structures and codes to which they are exposed do not exist anywhere in the textbooks and documents of their mother tongue.As a result, they wrongly begin to use the codes of the mother tongue in foreign language utterances.This is because each language has its own codes and structures, in such a way that to transfer them is to generate linguistic errors.Kiswahili has neither the auxiliaries " être/to be" and "avoir/to have" nor the agreement in gender and number in past tense.Hence, this study will significantly contribute to foreign language learning arena in Tanzania or elsewhere in the world with similar multilingual context.

Literature review
Several researchers have highlighted the notion of difference between languages leading to difficulties when learners attend classes of a foreign language.For example, Subtirelu, N. C. Et al (2022), suggests that, the linguistic difference existing between native speakers and foreigners can lead to misunderstandings and make the communication process impossible.As Catford (1965) suggests that the disparities between two or more languages is inevitably one of the causes of communication barrier.This problem is not just reported in day-to-day people's conversation, it goes further, and therefore it includes translation and interpretation problems (ibid.).French is language a Romance language, from the Indo-European family while Kiswahili is vernacular language from Bantu family of sub-Saharan Africa.Will there be not difficulties based on linguistic differences?According to researches carried by Subtirelu, N. C. Et al (2022) and Perdue (1980), this is clearly seen from reports on the perceptions of native and nonnative speakers in the United States.That errors arising from linguistic difference can therefore occur because learners are not fully aware of the grammar of the target language, they can therefore unknowingly assimilate some grammatical patterns.Subtirelu et al (2022) found that learners in his course had orientations on the linguistic difference between languages, without which, learning foreign language would probably be impossible.The difference between Kiswahili and French is generally considered by Manyasa, J. (2019), as one of the challenges in learning French foreign language in Tanzania.Because the above researcher had not been able to touch the difference in past tense learning, we aim to add knowledge on linguistic study through this research.Another study by Omary (2002) examined the pronunciation problems encountered by Tanzanians when learning French.The study focused on high school students as well as students from the University of Dar es Salaam.This study will focus on the differences of the aspects of the past tense.No one has ever done a research exactly of this kind with high school students.Therefore, it is our hope that it will be useful.Finally, our intention is to find out how learners deal with these language differences.

The linguistic situation in Tanzania
Kiswahili (considered as mother tongue and lingua franca), English (the medium of instruction at secondary school and tertiary level), and mosaics (variations of Bantu languages), together they constitute the linguistic situation in Tanzania (Rubagumya, 1991).Despite the existence of other foreign languages taught in schools, this tri-glossia context is considered the most common in the country.Let us have a look on the schooling system in Tanzania.There are only two languages of instruction: Kiswahili and English for primary level and secondary to tertiary level, respectively.There are then other foreign languages learned in schools including French, German, Arabic, and Chinese (Manyasa, J. 2019).In this context, Tanzania is totally a multilingual community, with two the most dominant languages.

French foreign language in Tanzania
The history of French in Tanzania dates back to the 16 th century, when Swahili-speakers met Frenchspeakers.This happened as soon as the Europeans (the French) arrived, including explorers such as Charles Guillain, in the region of our days "East Africa" (Mtavangu 2013).French was therefore one of the foreign languages and was introduced into the education system from the year 1958.To meet the needs of communication with French speakers, the decree took place but without keeping its expected promise of rapid expansion (ibid.).Some of the regional organizations of which Tanzania is a member, use French as an official language of communication, namely the East African Community (EAC) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC).Moreover, Kiswahili speakers are surrounded by certain French-speaking countries such as Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Comoros and Seychelles.Consequently, learning French in Tanzania makes integration with French-speaking African countries possible.In addition, the flow of refugees from neighboring countries, such as Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo, makes the teaching and learning of French in Tanzania essential.Furthermore, it is an irrefutable truth that the presence of international agencies such as the UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees), has created unlimited employment opportunities in the region.Regarding learning French Foreign Language in Tanzania, it is worthy to note that Tanzanians start learning French after completing primary education.As soon as they attend secondary school, they are exposed to a completely new langue (French).At this juncture, the learners have already mastered Kiswahili and very little of English language.They start French lessons without having any other language that they master better than Kiswahili.As the result, linguistic interference makes learning of French difficult for them.

Limitations of the study
The conceptualization of missing aspects in the mother tongue concerns the linguistic elements of French found nowhere in the Kiswahili language (mother tongue).There are French aspects that are missing in the prior language (Kiswahili).As it has already been articulated that, linguistic interference literally means the distinctive features of a first language, found in the second language (Weinreich U. 1970).This study entirety falls under linguistic interference, the author of the article wants to reveal how learners of French Foreign Language in Tanzania deal with the new aspects of French when learning the past tense.Apasu, F. 2018) distinguishes several typologies of linguistic interference as follows; phonetic interference, lexical interference and grammatical interference.Our study focuses on the latter case of grammatical aspects, but does not entirely exclude syntactic arrangement and other markers.However we will see the aspects that learners have never learned in their previous language (Kiswahili), but they must adopt to achieve the learning of French foreign Language.

Hypothesis
Examining the hypothesis, we defend opinion that, knowledge of prior language (Kiswahili) deteriorates the learning of French Foreign Language.The inhibition of learning French clearly arises from the fact that, there are some linguistic elements that are only found in French.In this present study, we therefore highlight the language elements originating from Kiswahili (mother tongue (L1)) which pose difficulties regarding the learning of French in Tanzania.Our hypothesis is clearly anchored on the notion of contrastive analysis, seeking to unveil the disparities or heterogeneities between French and the learners' prior language/mother tongue.Certainly, learners face countless obstacles when learning French Foreign Language, as they are exposed to entirely new principles that they must overcome.One of our most obvious assumption is that the presence of auxiliaries, gender agreement, and reflexive verbs in the past, are the source difficulties when learning French.All these listed elements, are not found in Kiswahili (L1).The conceptualization of the aspects missing in the mother tongue, in this case Kiswahili, is imbedded, as has already been explained, in the difference of linguistic distribution of elements, this includes lexicons, functional words and inflectional morphemes.The transfer of knowledge originating from prior languages, and the complex distribution which does not resemble that of their prior language, are among the most suspicious aspects of the challenges of teaching French Foreign Language.Therefore, it is important to take into account that, in a context of multilingualism, linguistic interference is profoundly inevitable.Linguistic interference is an ostensible reason why French language learners, and teachers in Tanzania seek to improve the foreign language learning practice.

Theoretical framework Contrastive Analysis (CA) Theory
Charles Fries established the theory of contrastive analysis in 1940, and then it was popularized by Robert Lado in 1957.Its discovery dates back to the 1940s to 1980s, at a time when language teaching was considered as a matter of linguistic differences.Contrastive analysis theory emphasizes the description and comparison of L1 and L2.Contrastive Analysis (CA) theory is rooted in the basic assumption that, when the first language and the target language have certain nearly similar language components, learners will easily acquire the structure of the target language.In addition, in this theory linguists argue that, when the components of the languages in a given pair are different, learners will hardly acquire the target language.In general, CA theory is essentially based on the notion of linguistic transfer across languages.Since the difficulties in learning a foreign language do not occur by chance, the research on linguistic transfer of this kind is surely important.

Analysis and discussion Introduction
Under contrastive analysis, this study is based on investigating how the difference between languages in pair, can act as a stumbling block towards learning foreign language.As we are looking at the differences, the similarities are not put aside either.Because there will always be some similarities to facilitate or differences to hinder the learning of new language, depending on their nature and language family (Gast, V. 2013).It is in the same name of difference and similarity, lie the concept of linguistic interference.Contrastive analysis therefore intervenes into making symmetrical comparison between patterns of language pairs (Fisiak, J. (1981).Fries C. (1946), contended that for the foreign language learning to be effective, the learner must compare its linguistic patterns with their native language, in so doing linguistic interference must inevitably be taken into account.The focus of our study analysis and discussion overtly proves our hypothesis that, the difference between prior language and French foreign language are at the central cause of language learning difficulties.Since the prior languages of the learners do not have the same systems, French foreign language learning is hardly done.Lado, (1957), contend that it is verily possible to predict and literally describe patterns and features that are likely to cause difficulties in learning any foreign language, given that we fore make symmetrical comparison between the language pairs.The same argumental paradigm in the name of "contrastive hypothesis" has been clearly described by Wardhaugh, R. (1970).It is true that the claims of Labo have come into validation in this study.The hypothesis that the presence of gender and number agreement, presence of auxiliaries, and reflexive verb aspect are probable source of French language challenges for the learners whose prior tongue/mother tongue (L1) is Kiswahili.The table below shows clearly the kinds of difficult aspects we treated in our data analysis.Out of five (5) sample questions, every aspect is divided in to two main learning behaviors/outcomes "Corr.standing for correct and Inc. standing for incorrect".

Gender and number agreement
Having the agreement in gender and number, is obvious that both aspects cause difficulties when teaching French as a foreign language.Given that in French, with regard to verbs carrying the auxiliary "être /to be", the past participle form must agree in gender and number of the subject (doer).In past tense, this phenomenon does not exist in Kiswahili or in English.It is therefore a source of error among Swahilispeaker learners.We have noticed Right away several interference related errors committed by the high school learners.The concept of gender in Kiswahili and English is limited only in the bases of biological sex.Which finally does not require agreement of verbs in gender and number.Whereas in French, the subject (doers of action) is in semantic connection with the verb to which it must agree in gender and number.Among the most frequent interferential errors in a multilingual environment are those related to gender agreement (Ezeodili, S. 2019).In French, it matters when it comes to a feminine, masculine or plural subject.Because, feminine and masculine subjects require an addition of morpheme "e" and "s" respectively.While no additional morpheme is added for a masculine subject.It is also important to note that, the addition is done in past participle verb form for feminine and plural only.In addition, no marker is added for masculine or singular.Example; Il est entré /he entered, ils sont entrés/they entered (masculine) Elle est entrée/she entered, elles sont entrées/they entered (feminin)  Let's focus on the detailed figure above.In Kiswahili and English, nothing is added to match the gender and number of the subject (doer of an action).This observation is quite different from that of French language.Because, we are obliged to add the morpheme "e", if the subject (the doer) is feminine and morpheme "s" if the subject (the doer) is in plural.For example, "nous sommes allé-e-s/we went" (feminine, plural), je suis arrivé-e/I arrived (feminine).Note that the purpose of the hyphen in the above cases is to show the demarcation between functional morphemes in words.The errors produced in French are the results from their first languages, because learners employ language grammatical comparison as their initiative to master the foreign language (Ezeodili, S. 2019).Something to note, in French, past tense (passé composé) has a compound structure, since it has two or more than two words.While in Kiswahili, past tense has non-compound structure, hence it involves a single word with the morpheme "li" inserted in-between the verb.Consider the following example; "je suis allée" versus "nilikwenda".Been obliged to formulate compound structure in French, learners are vulnerable to commit errors because they need to undergo a great linguistic mental shift.

Reflexive verbs
We have revealed that reflexive verbs are common in French but very rare in Kiswahili.But they do not share the same characteristics in both languages.It is for this reason, we can notice that learners face difficulty in using them.Although reflexive verbs can rarely be used in Kiswahili, the difference is in the question of meaning, and how they are composed in past tense.Let us look at some examples of French reflexive verbs, and how they are translated "se lever" = kuamka/to work up, se baigner = kuoga/to take bath, se laver = kunawa/to wash one self etc.The verbs mentioned above do not necessarily carry the reflexive meaning in either Kiswahili or English.As a result, French Foreign Language learners are confronted with non-familial verb patterns.Just as in English, there are only the reciprocal/reflective pronouns carrying the reflexive meaning like "himself, herself, itself, themselves, yourself, and oneself".In Kiswahili there is only a special morpheme "ji" inserted in the middle of the verbs to carry the meaning of reciprocity.This is because Kiswahili language originates from agglutinating language family.For example; ana-ji-piga = He beats himself, nina-ji-heshimu = I respect myself.Reflexive verbs trigger linguistic interference, causing many difficulties when teaching/learning French Foreign Language among Tanzanian learners whose mother tongue is Kiswahili.It should also be noted that our French Foreign Language learners learn French when they have already mastered English, so they also use the knowledge of English in French.Consequently, here is a sample of data we gathered from the learning field, s'inscrire = ku-ji-sajili/to register oneself.The majority of them conjugated this reflexive verb according to the rules of Swahilicism or Anglicism.For example, learners wrote, *j'ai inscrit = ni-me-ji-sajili/ I have registered myself.This error is emanating from English, which uses auxiliary to have for perfect aspect but not for past tense.They wrongly used the auxiliary to have instead of the verb "to be" as it should be.The correct form of this verb is "je me suis inscrit".Neither in English nor in Kiswahili is this form of the reflexive verb acceptable, because both lack this verb aspect.Generally, we discovered that learners in the high school classes had difficulty using reflexive verbs that are not present in either of their prior languages.The disparity between the prior languages and French is a real cause of the problems related to the learning of the French past tense among high school students in Tanzania.

The presence of auxiliaries
We have also noticed that the presence of auxiliaries to mark the past tense is another aspect that poses difficulties when learning French Foreign Language.For high school French language learners, the interferential errors emanating from Kiswahili and English in French is indubitably inevitable.According to Monville-Burston M. (2013), claims that the prior language is not the only reason for the problems in learning any foreign language, but an undeniable truth is it is one of them.Learners find themselves in the middle of learning foreign language with a cognitive linguistic schema of the first language (ibid.).He also adds that the disparity between languages is one of the central factors hindering the teaching/learning of any foreign language.According to what we testified in the field, we hold this assertion to be true.FLE learners had difficulty mastering the auxiliaries.According to our observation in teaching carrier, the auxiliary "être/to be" and "avoir/to have", which are in complementary distribution are not found anywhere in their first language (Kiswahili).This is the probable source of the challenges of teaching/learning French Foreign Language.Although English has the auxiliary "to have" and "to be", the use of the two auxiliaries in English does not exactly imply the meaning of past tense as it is in French.In English however, the auxiliaries "to have" and "to be" are only for carrying "perfective aspect" and "continuous aspect" respectively.For example; I have eaten, I am eating.Having expounded auxiliary-based disparity in learning French Foreign Language, let us discuss Kiswahili-French-English case in a detailed manner hereunder.The fact that in French to express oneself in the past tense auxiliaries are inevitable, is a major reason for the learners of French Foreign Language to face challenges.To be able to correctly communicate in French, the learners find themselves in a midst of confusion, to select the proper auxiliary for every given verb.As it has been shown in the table above, there are no auxiliaries in their prior languages carrying similar meaning of simple the past tense, the learner use prior language knowledge to learn French.Little do they know that languages differ.Certainly, these are affected by the linguistic interference from prior acquired languages.

Conclusion
Notwithstanding, our survey is based on high school learners of French language in Tanzania, its scope and usefulness is surely extended beyond French foreign language learning.In fact, this study will therefore be useful regarding teaching of any other foreign language.The aspects that we have treated as difficulties, are due to the difference between the languages (this is where the theory of contrastive analysis and linguistic interference are born).The interferential errors that we have highlighted emanating from Kiswahili (L1), is an obvious case that the mother tongue serves for a psych-pedagogical reference or subconscious inference among learners of French Foreign Language in Tanzania.From this descriptive study, we found that contrastive analysis between languages is a topic of interest in almost every community having more than one languages.This work boldly supports the argument that, in multilingualism, all languages undergo constant change and perpetual influence in the face of language contact (Al-Hajebi, A. 2019).So, due to the findings that we have studied, it is incumbent on learners and teachers to ensure that they seek a better pedagogical approach to facilitate and improve the learning of French Foreign Language in Tanzania, to change for the better.It is also the responsibility of teachers, no matter the provocations, to encourage their learners despite interference errors.It is an irrefutable question that no learning is possible without going through linguistic interference, or bypassing such a first psycholinguistic phase.At this juncture, we agree with Debyser (1970), that learning a foreign language, and achieving discursive competence, is a question of persistence in teaching, nondiscontinuous practice, and enough experience.However, for us, it is worthy find out frequency of errors and point out the most challenging areas, so we suggest to the facilitators not to stop every time a mistake is made, nor to stigmatize in any way, but to embrace mistakes as a primary step to archiving native like competence.We deliberately recommend teachers to boldly put much emphasis on the main three areas; 1. Verb agreement, 2. Reflexive verbs, 3. Auxiliaries.After proposing remedial recommendations, we thought it useful to show the aspects according to the degree of difficulty, to help our readers find the most problematic aspects.It is also important to know that, this study was carried out in adult learners' context.That is why it is not surprising that learning seems to cause many difficulties.The credibility of argument is based in the critical age theory, holding that "the earlier the learning, the easier the process".Because Errors occur unconsciously or consciously, we must find other ways to conduct other researches on linguistic interference or contrastive analysis, so that the foreign language pedagogical improvement may take place.We have only analyzed the missing aspects in Kiswahili and the result of linguistic interference in Tanzania.Our study constitutes a very small portion of what remains unrevealed.We call on researchers to conduct enough research on any given language pairs.

Figure
Figure 2