Teacher Preparation and the Implementation of Official Bilingualism in Anglophone Primary Schools in Cameroon: A Study of Some Teacher Training Colleges in the Buea Municipality

: Since the reunification of the two Cameroons in 1961, successive modes of application of official bilingualism have been adopted geared toward empowering every child leaving school with communication competencies in English and French. Despite the noble intentions, the pedagogic implications of the implementation remain uncertain. With the current Anglophone crisis, the much talked about ‘living together’ is threatened by a linguistic divide which, undeniably, has a huge toll on the cultural heritage of the two linguistic communities in the country. One wonders why after more than half a century; official bilingualism is not yet a living reality among school leavers. In teacher training institutions responsible for laying the foundation for the achievement of the policy, language curriculum still leaves much to be desired. This research investigates teacher preparation as a crucial link in implementing the official bilingualism policy in Anglophone primary schools. It focuses on language curriculum as the basis for teacher training to establish its adequacy in the achievement of official bilingualism. The paper examines official bilingualism in the professional preparation of teachers in some public, confessional and lay private teacher training institutions in the Buea municipality of the South West Region of Cameroon. The findings reveal that, though most teachers have a good working experience of over 10 years, their deficient bilingualism levels do not reflect effectiveness in bilingualism teaching. They cannot plan, implement and evaluate French and bilingualism training lessons. They lack exposure in terms of content knowledge and pedagogic skills and have limited time allocation for bilingual training. Finally, teachers do not master the French language subject matter they are expected to teach.


Introduction
For almost to sixty years, Cameroon has grappled with the implementation of a policy of official bilingualism involving English and French with a lot of materials and intellectual resources devoted to ensuring its generalized achievement across the nation.Since 2000, official bilingualism has been introduced into primary schools right from the kindergartens and bilingual schools have been multiplied across the country as part of the overall strategy for achieving this goal.Yet this goal, lofty as it seems, is far from becoming a reality on the ground.Schools continue to be essentially monolingual and children still complete the primary and secondary cycles as official monolinguals because they cannot speak or function in the two official languages.On their part, training institutions have failed to provide training capable of enhancing the construction of a bilingual society.The curriculum designed for these institutions does not guarantee effective teaching of these two languages so teachers trained in these languages are as monolingual as the learners.The overall national picture of official bilingualism in Cameroon is thus one in which the country is bilingual but its citizens are

ISSN: 2795-4846
Volume 23 (Jan-2024) Available online: https://mjssh.academicjournal.ionot.This is what has led to the popular saying "It is Cameroon that is bilingual and not Cameroonians".In French, the saying goes thus "C'est le cameroun qui est bilingue et pas les Camerounais(es)".
In the Anglophone regions, the scenario is very worrying.As a minority linguistic community, its attitudes towards and their ability to use the French language usually come under serious scrutiny.Owing to historical and political reasons, Anglophones are generally considered by the majority Francophone population to have a deep-seated hatred for the French without any well-investigated justification.Little attention is paid to the failure of educational institutions to deliver official bilingualism teaching.Such judgmental conclusions fail, for instance, to question whether or not the language curriculum designed for these institutions can produce bilingual teachers in the case of training schools and bilingual learners in the case of ordinary school children.In this paper, we attempt an investigate the level of teacher preparation by way of bilingual training in teacher training schools as a central consideration in the implementation of the official bilingualism policy in Cameroon.
The need to highlight the importance of bilingualism in Cameroon has been emphasized in various official documents, policies and national projections geared toward promoting citizen attainment of bilingual skills such as the Growth and Employment Strategy Paper, Draft Document on the sectorwide approach, Operation bilingualism and Vision 2035.The realization of these policy guidelines lies heavily in the hands of the teachers.The desire to implement bilingualism in Cameroon's education as a measure of ensuring access, equity, quality, and effectiveness, as portrayed by the policy in the Growth and Employment Strategy Paper (GESP 2010-2020), seeks to raise the provision and quality of training in the education system.The Cameroons' draft policy document called "The Sector Wide Approach on Education' 2010), reiterates the constitutional provision and government's will to assign the mission to the educational system, followed by the law of 1998 sub six (6) which highlights the promotion of bilingualism and mastery of indigenous languages, gives credence in the implementation of the bilingualism curriculum to the teachers.
As Tambo (2012) puts it, teachers are undoubtedly at the centre of the implementation of any curriculum.The preparation of teachers in general is said to have a direct link to their successful professional growth (Darling-Hammond, 2005).Teacher performance and productivity have a direct link with the depth to which they are prepared before teaching.Dewey (1904Dewey ( /1965) ) states that 'teacher education places more focus on the students being readily proficient as opposed to teachers being continual students of education itself'.This potentially stifles the preparation of students and teachers and thus inhibits their growth.Owing to the importance of teachers in the curriculum development and implementation process, teacher training needs to provide the student teachers with appropriate knowledge capable of helping them in the curriculum implementation operations.Carlos (2009) posits that teachers need vigorous training to enable them to stand curriculum implementation challenges when they effectively start teaching while Handler (2010) holds that there is a need for teacher involvement in the development of curriculum and implementation.Teacher involvement in the curriculum process is thus very crucial as it can align the content of the curriculum with students' needs in the classroom.This is particularly the case with language needs within the official bilingualism curriculum in Cameroon where a majority of learners are deprived of the required exposure to the linguistic and materials resources in their second official language as is the case with Anglophones learning French.
Unfortunately, primary school teacher training programs are not designed to in-build this linguistic skill to the teachers undergoing training.Different types of training institutions exist in the English sub-system of education such as government teachers training colleges (GTTC), the government bilingual teacher training colleges (GBTTC) and mission or confessional and private teacher training institutions.Although the GBTTC possesses the attributes of bilingualism from its appellation, the training of teachers from the two language extractions is parallel (Wotany, 2012).These schools admit students from both language extractions and treat them separately by equipping them with skills needed to teach in their various sub-systems (English and French).The primary objective of these training institutions is to train teachers to teach all subjects in the primary school curriculum.
Although Cameroon plays host to over 180 languages, it operates an official language policy based on English and French.However, teachers in training or practice are faced with classrooms where in a majority of cases, the language of the pupils on their first day in school is neither English nor French.Yet government expectations are that children who leave primary schools should be bilingual.This implies that teachers are faced with the odious task of transforming these pupils into active bilinguals in English and French.Directly or indirectly, this means that the teachers themselves need satisfactory levels of bilingual skills guaranteed by effective application in the classroom.However close observation reveals that curriculum content and delivery strategies for the attainment of bilingualism seem not to consider bilingualism as a priority.The gap between teachers' language needs and learners expected bilingual skills acquisition keeps widening.Institutional empowerment necessary in providing adequate training to bilingual teachers as a guarantee for producing bilingual primary school leavers is largely neglected.

Methodology
A descriptive survey research design was used in this study.Koul (1992) observes that survey design is the only means through which views, opinions, attitudes and suggestions for improvement of educational practices and instruction can be collected.The purposive and quota sampling technique was used to identify the study population, consisting of fifty (50) Grades I trained primary school teachers from three teacher training institutions namely; Government Teacher Training College (GTTC), Remedial Teacher Training College (RTTC) and Saint John Bosco in the Buea municipality.The teachers sampled were currently practising in some primary schools in the Fako division of the South West Region of Cameroon.Each of the three institutions was chosen based on its proximity and other predetermined criterion.The selected schools made up the quota of the population based on their size and strength.Ten (10) teacher trainers and administrators were purposively selected to respond to the interview.They were selected on the basis of their experience and availability.Questionnaires, interviews and document exploitation checklists were used as instruments in obtaining data from the sample population and document survey.Teachers' perceptions on the level of bilingualism preparation during training was verified in terms of; time-tabling or the provisions of slots for bilingualism, resources for teaching and staffing for the attainment of bilingualism.The data collected were analyzed using descriptive statistics to determine frequencies and percentages.These were presented using tables.The study monitored the preparedness of teachers in terms of duration of training, time allocation for teaching, technical skills that support teaching/learning and mastery of content by verifying their perception on knowledge about planning, implementation, evaluation and interaction between the teachers and the learners in the process of teaching/learning.It also verified practising teachers' perception of their bilingualism preparedness and implementation.The questionnaire equally provided demographic data and respondents' perceptions on themes, which included the demography of the respondents, entry requirements, the duration of the training programs, time allocation for bilingualism subjects, teachers' mastery of bilingualism content and mastery of technical skills for teaching bilingualism.The survey studied the syllabus for French didactics on various themes.An interview guide provided teacher trainers' opinions on the place of bilingualism in the teacher training curriculum (adequate versus inadequate).It verified from the administrators; the objective and place of bilingualism teaching in their schools, administrators' assessment of the attainment of official bilingualism, the availability of special programs, slots and time allocations for bilingualism, trainees' attitudes toward bilingualism, availability of technical resources to promote the attainment of bilingualism.Document exploitation looked at the teachers' training syllabus adequacy in delivering bilingual content.Finally, document survey checklists looked at the syllabus for grade I teachers' training institutions according to the following themes; syllabus objective, syllabus curriculum structure and training time allocations.

Findings and Discussion
The findings are presented instrument-by-instrument and discussed about relevant literature.

Percentages were obtained by
Findings from Questionnaire for trained grade I teachers The demographic data sought to find out respondents' background in terms of qualification, duration of training, experience in teaching and bilingual abilities based on diagnostic placement as the basis for proper acquisition and subsequence implementation of bilingualism in primary school.As can be seen from Table 2, teachers' demographic information revealed that 40 (80%) of teachers who responded to the questionnaires were grade I certified teachers while only 10(20%) of the respondents had other qualifications like a grade II certificate.For the duration of their training, 54 (68%) of them attested that they were trained for only nine (9) months or one academic years, while 16(32%) did their training for two or three years.
The responses also revealed that most of the respondents had been in the teaching profession for more than ten (10) years.2(4%) were beginning teachers who had been in the teaching profession for less than ten (10 years).33(66%) also acknowledged that their bilingualism level was quite low before, during and after their training while 34% rated their bilingualism level above average before, during and after their training.On whether their training programs considered their entry bilingual level for placement, 76% responded negatively while 24% felt that their training program had them organized according to their levels of bilingualism   It was revealed that 67% of the respondents never tried to improve their bilingualism skills after their training.70% attested that they had never tried to improve their level of bilingualism in any way after their training as primary school teachers.Also, they indicated their unpreparedness to plan, implement and evaluate bilingualism in their various classrooms.63% indicated their training did not empower them with skills to teach pupils to become bilingual.76% of the respondents concluded that though they were teaching basic third language (French) to pupils, they could not expect them to master them since they (teachers) themselves do not master the language.About the mastery of the bilingualism subject matter, as seen in the table above, 76% of the respondents said bilingualism is an expected learning outcome for their learners at both the macro and micro levels.56% of the respondents attested that their training intends to help them teach pupils to become bilingual.Contrarily, only 28% of teachers attested that their training helped them to attainment of bilingualism skills.Also, only 22% saw the link between French didactics taught during their training program and effective teaching of French.Finally, 36% of the respondents said they can teach French as a result of their training.This means that 64% of the respondents cannot teach French as a result of their training.
Teachers had difficulties showing mastery of subject matter from which learners were supposed to acquire bilingualism skills.Because primary school teachers are compelled to teach all subjects in the curriculum, there is no specialization and efficiency in content delivery.Practising teachers face the challenge of using their knowledge of the content to organize the curriculum to engage the learners in the content of the subject.This calls for teachers' deep understanding of the subjects to master the skills of organizing subject matter to promote learning.Mastery of subject matter is central to teachers' attainment of effective teaching.This means that teachers expressed the need to master key elements in French grammar, vocabulary, conjugation, tenses, spelling, etc.This represents evidence enough of their unpreparedness to teach.
An open-ended question was posed to the teachers to elicit their views on what aspects related to bilingualism teaching they should improve on as they attempted to teach French to Anglophone pupils.
A study of the recurring themes revealed that their main concerns were still based on the basic mastery of French language content knowledge of teaching and this can be grouped under four main subheadings: It was very obvious from the feedback gathered that the teachers generally felt that they needed more exposure in terms of content knowledge and pedagogic skills which to them were most crucial in determining the quality of teaching and learning that takes place in the classroom.76% of the teachers shared this same concern.They indicated that they did not feel apt or ready to teach because they lacked the skills mentioned above.In terms of content knowledge and teaching pedagogy, 56% said they were still lacking in skills such as preparing effective lesson plans for teaching French language, stating clear teachable and attainable objectives in French language, inability to read or write appropriately in French, lack of exposure to new methods and approaches used in teaching, preparation of authentic teaching materials and teaching aids/ materials and evaluation.5 above, 81% of the respondents were not convinced that nine months of training was enough to enable them to acquire sufficient skills to implement bilingualism in the classroom.76% of the respondents were not satisfied with the time allocation for the French didactic during their training.88% showed the desire to have more time allocated for French didactics considering its importance in bilingualism and the educational goals of the country.Finally, 86% affirmed that the class time schedule was too short to guarantee completion of the syllabus.Considering that training duration has a direct link on the achievement of teacher efficiency in class, the amount of time set aside for training would give trainees ample time to master the breadth and depth of the curriculum and how to plan and implement it.Subjects which make up the core curriculum should be given priority timeslots and efficient teacher and teaching resources to maximize output.Table 6 shows respondents' mastery of technical skill for the implementation of the bilingualism subject matter in primary schools.Only 18% said they have mastery of the technical skills needed for the implementation of bilingualism or French subject matter in their various schools.On their ability to prepare lesson plans for the teaching of French, only 24% responded in the affirmative, 12% showed proof of ability to state clear teachable lesson objectives for the French subject.68% refused having mastery of French subject matter and said that they could not teach what they do not know.

Interviews with teacher trainers and administrators
Ten (10)  Concerning the purpose or objective of bilingualism in teacher training institutions, 86% of the respondents acknowledged bilingualism as a national policy geared toward the promotion of the two official languages (English and French).They were certain that the promotion of bilingualism is a national issue to be achieved through policy implementation as contained in the school curriculum.
Other respondents said that the realization of this policy is the prerogative of the individual schools.
Teacher trainers and administrators argued that considering the syllabus and the location of schools, training institutions in urban cities are better placed to implement bilingualism in their schools since that the students who seek admissions in these institutions are from the two language extractions.The school administrators were in one accord; that as a matter of policy, institutions determine how seriously they implement the official bilingualism policy.Others cited the availability of trained teachers who are bilingual and motivated to teach in these institutions as a major factor for the attainment of bilingualism.
On administrators' assessment of the level of implementation of bilingualism in their various institutions, the respondents were categorical that no significant changes occur on individual students' ability to communicate in French or master the language after training.They cited the short duration of the training program, numerous subjects on the curriculum, unavailability of trained teachers to teach bilingualism and lack of didactic materials as the causes of poor bilingualism output.
On the availability of special programs, slots and time allocations for bilingualism, the respondents differed in their responses; while some said they did not have any special slot allocated to raise the level of bilingualism, others cited the national week for the celebration of bilingualism as a special time during which trainees are encouraged to practice bilingualism.4 (40%) of the administrators said the themes selected each year in commemoration of official bilingualism are used tools to sensitize trainees on the importance of bilingualism.6 (60%) of the administrators and trainers stated that the week annually kept aside for the celebration of bilingualism does not translate into mastery of either of the languages.They expatiated that such days or weeks are meant to highlight the political importance of a bilingual nation rather that what can be done to improve bilingualism among the citizens.On the difference between French and language French didactics, 5 (50%) trainers and administrators could clearly make the difference between French language and French didactic, while 5 (50%) could not make this distinction.They said French language is the same like French didactics.Of the ten (10) trainers and administrators interviewed, 3 (30%) indicated that French didactics lessons have been raised to coefficient 4 to attract learners' attention and interest, while 7 (70%) of the respondent refute any improvement of bilingualism as a result of increase in the coefficient of the subject French didactics.They concluded that the increase in coefficient has not been translated into content mastery on the side of the trainees.
Trainee's attitude toward bilingualism 7 (70%) teacher trainers and administrators reported trainee nonchalant attitude and lack of interest in the French didactics subject.They said those who had previously acquired a certain degree of French language in their secondary school or in other forms simply excel while those who have little or no entry background knowledge find the subject boring.Similarly, 6 (60%) trainers said trainees who had a positive attitude about themselves and their profession were more effective in increasing the quality of pupils' learning.According to the trainers, the more trainees regard their opportunity to implement effective teaching practices, the better their pupils will perform.40 (80%) trainers reported that teacher training programs do not intend to introduce bilingualism or teach French didactic fundamentally but to provide pedagogic tools that can be used in the implementation process of the subject.

Document analyses of teacher training syllabus
A document survey of teacher training syllabus revealed the three school categories; confessional, public and lay private institutions, implement the same syllabus provided by the Ministry of Secondary Education.This curriculum targets the five domains of the content for the three levels.These domains are: Ø Didactics of Primary and Nursery school activities; Ø Sciences of Education; Educational Technologies; Ø Reinforced alternated practicum (teaching practice…).
From the above, it shows that bilingual training comes in first position, based on importance and as such, it should have priority in the curriculum structure, time allocation and as a consequence student bilingualism subject matter mastery.
It was also observed that bilingualism subject content for training teachers is the same for the three levels of the teacher training program.The difference is that the dosage (depth and sequence) takes into consideration the entry qualification of trainees.Though the entry requirements do not take linguistic considerations into account, trainees are taught the same content notwithstanding their French language entry level.

Training time allocation
The time allocation for the various learning domains is summarized in the table below; Observably and contrary to the presentation of the domains of the content above, the table on time allocation for the various domains paints a true picture of neglect, lack of seriousness and a curriculum that clearly differs from policy, politics and the practice of bilingualism as shown on the time allocation for bilingual training.This is further expressed in the importance (coefficient) assigned to the various subjects as against the levels of the content studied.Despite the political importance of bilingualism, French didactics is still a coefficient one (1) subject for the different levels of the study.

Levels of Training Domains
A higher coefficient would have indicated a higher level of subject importance in the training program.This clearly shows that bilingualism as a subject in the training program of primary school teachers in Cameroon is not a pedagogic or curriculum priority.The time allocation for the subjects of the teacher training program in the Fako Division shows that French didactic is the subject with the least amount of time allocation.Those taking the one-year course have only sixty hours (60), which is twice a week for 36 weeks, thus making one academic year.This time is too short for any effective attainment of the prescribed learning objectives.This basic assessment seems to give credence to the three-year course, which provides trainees with 180 hours of class time for bilingual training.This time is understandably good enough for some significant attainment of learning objectives.The objective of French didactics in the syllabus is stated as follows: "Compétence terminale : A la fin de la formation, l'élève-maitre doit pouvoir préparer et conduire des enseignements /apprentissages du Français dans toutes les classes de l'école primaire en intégrant des innovations pédagogiques".
In the absence of translation, this objective is not understood by a great majority of the students, who talk less of achieving it.The content and method of teaching do not prescribe learners' expected entry behaviour.This casts a shadow of doubt on the prerequisite knowledge expected from the learner, upon which the new knowledge in French should be built.

Report of Teacher trainers and administrators' interview
Teacher trainers and administrators acknowledged bilingualism as a national policy geared toward the promotion of the two official languages (English and French) and that competencies in these languages are to be learnt through curriculum implementation.
Ø Training institutions in urban cities were found more likely to implement official bilingualism due to prior knowledge acquired by trainees on the subject and the availability of qualified bilingual teacher trainers to facilitate the learning process.
Ø The short duration of the training program, numerous subjects in the curriculum, availability of trained teachers and lack of didactic materials were cited as the causes of poor bilingualism output in the trainee and consequently pupil entrusted to this trained teacher.
Ø School administrators and teacher trainers express that the statutory one week (bilingualism week) annually dedicated to the celebration of bilingualism does not translate to mastery of either language.They expatiated that such days or weeks are meant to highlight the political importance of a bilingual nation rather than what can be done to improve citizen bilingualism.
Ø Student teachers who have little or no background knowledge of French find the subject boring and are unmotivated to learn it.The consequence is that in future, they are not equipped enough to teach it.
Ø Teacher training programs do not intend to introduce bilingualism or teach French from the basics (fundamental levels) but to provide pedagogic tools that can be used in the implementation process.These language tools without an understanding of the language structure and content cannot guarantee pupils' attainment of bilingual skills.

Report of Document Survey
Ø Time allocated for the various teaching domains in teacher training programmes shows neglect, lack of seriousness and curriculum implementation that differs from policy, politics and the practice of bilingualism.
Ø The coefficient assigned to bilingual study indicates that bilingual studies is not a curriculum priority.
Ø The objective of the syllabus for bilingual studies could not be read and understood by a crosssection of student teachers.This makes its achievement a mirage and its transmission into pupils' learning an impossibility

Conclusion
The findings of this study point to the fact that bilingual teachers graduate from training institutions without the required competencies to teach children in the two languages.They are trained in one language which is their first official language (English) and then given some tips in French didactics, which focuses more on the techniques of teaching French than the acquisition of competencies in the French language itself.One can then conclude that Anglophone primary schools cannot produce bilingual pupils after six years of schooling because the teachers who teach the children are not adequately prepared to carry out effective and efficient teaching of the two official languages.

Ø
teacher trainers' and administrators of teacher training schools were interviewed on the following themes: Objective and place of bilingualism teaching in their schools Ø Their assessment of the attainment of official bilingualism Ø Availability of special programs, slots and time allocations for bilingualism Ø Trainee's attitude toward bilingualism Ø Technical resources to promote the attainment of bilingualism

Table I
below shows the demography of teacher at their entry state for training.

Table 3
below shows primary school teachers' perceptions of bilingualism preparedness after training.