The Competency Based Approach to English Language Education and the Walls between the Classroom and the Society in Cameroon: Pulling Down the Walls

This paper contends that English as a foreign language teaching in the classrooms at all the levels of education is not adapted to the everyday communication needs of the Cameroonian learners and that an English language pedagogy of integration; otherwise known as the outcomes approach or the competency based approach can solve the problem. This approach seeks for linguistic and sociolinguistic competence in the language. In fact, walls seem to exist between the knowledge these learners get in the classrooms and the implementation of the knowledge in the real world society for which that knowledge is destined. Literature in the domain of attitudes and motivation shows that they are affectively predisposed to learn the language. A critical examination of the syllabus revealed that it spells out laudable learning outcomes or expectations and that it has adequate communicative approach recommendations for a post-methods era English language teacher. But recent literature on classroom teaching holds that English language teaching in Cameroon is a matter of teacher talk and chalk and course books; some of which are not adapted to the learners’ needs and interests