A Makerere University language professor has cautioned Ugandan French language students to always maintain their identity, as a way to uphold the values of their African society both at home and abroad.
“Later on in life, you are going to travel abroad after learning French but even in international conferences, you should always be conscious that you are Africans and whatever you do hereafter, make sure you reflect your culture even as you learn the French culture,” she said.
The message was delivered by Prof. Edith Natukunda Togboa of Makerere University’s Department of European and Oriental Languages, while closing a five-day French language boot camp for secondary school French learners and teachers, held at Seeta High School Mbalala Campus.
The ‘Camps Ludiques Francophones Ouganda’ (CALUFU) camp held under the theme ‘Learning to Interact Through Games in the Digital Era’, was funded by the French Embassy in Uganda, and intended to internalize French language through extra-curricular activities. It drew over 400 participants from schools across the country.
Prof. Togboa disclosed that the two-year project to rotate in all regions of the country, was funded by the French government to the tune of sh1.2bn.
The head of the Association of French Teachers in Uganda Agatha Tumwine Magezi said that the camp attended by learners from 26 schools is geared at helping French learners practice the language in out-of-class activities including games, cookery, recitations and others, and to arouse the spirit of team work and competition among themselves.
She said the camp is to become an annual event to go around secondary schools in the country, with the objective of letting learners realize that at the other side of the society, there is someone who knows something new which they need to learn.
Magezi lamented that it is unfortunate that some headtechers did not understand the objective of the camp and ignorantly declined to send their learners to the camp.
Sheila, an education student at Makerere University who was a facilitator at the CALUFU camp, noted that the camp was designed after the realization that classroom time is limited and inadequate for the students to learn the French language entirely, adding that the intervention takes away their fears and build confidence in them.
Another facilitator Mayanja Tony, said the learning time was sandwiched with jogging, dancing and other forms of entertainment, but all activities being conducted in the French language.
Mugulusi Mercy, a Senior One student of Seeta High School, told Kyaggwe TV that besides formal learning, she made friends both French and Ugandans, and added that she is looking forward to another camp to internalize what she has gone through.
The students exhibited a number of things which they learnt on the day of closure including plays, dances, songs, poems among others and they were all in French.
