Reading Comprehension Difficulties among French Students of the University of Education, Winneba: Sources, Analyses and Implications

Abstract

Language students in every higher institution of learning are required to deal with literary texts either for linguistic or literary reasons. The quality of work done depends so much on the level of understanding of the reading text by students. This article intends to investigate the problems that non-native students of French of the University of Education, Winneba encounter with comprehension passages. The study attempts to expose the source of the problem and try to prescribe some pedagogical strategies to help improve the comprehension level of students which will eventually impact on their overall academic performance. Fifty (50) first-year students were involved in a reading test of intermediate standard (A2). An attempt was also made to find the understanding level of the students during the reading comprehension test. Questionnaires were equally administered to further understand the individual comprehension problem of each participant. The study found out that majority of our respondents performed far below average in the comprehension test. Furthermore, most of the respondents lack the culture of reading documents written in French which can help them build their background knowledge. The result is intended to be used to recommend some pedagogical strategies /approaches.