Y’de Pilot Centre: Language lessons pull crowds

Having a better mastery of the two official languages in Cameroon and other foreign languages is a major attraction for many. Marie M., a Yaounde inhabitant, went to the Yaounde Pilot Linguistic Centre last week to register her three children for the holiday language classes.

She said her intention is to prepare the children to face challenges ahead. Today, children and adults go for language classes for diverse reasons.

The Yaounde Pilot Linguistic Centre offers language classes in French, English and German. During holidays there are two sessions- one in July and another in August. The programme runs for five weeks and has 55 hours of lectures.

The Director of the Centre, Jacques Mathurin Ze said the teaching programme matches with the international request for teaching languages. Jacques Mathurin Ze said for the first week the centre has registered 700 students.

He said with the end of the Probatoire Examination more students will come and register. He explained that during holidays the centre has more than 1000 students.

There are classes in the mornings and afternoons thus two hours per day and 10 hours per week. Out of the 10 hours students have two-hour sessions in the language laboratories. Prior to registration, students write a placement test to test their language level. During the session, they have two continuous assessments. The first one takes place during the first week and the last during the fifth week.

At the end of the session the students are given attestations. Holiday classes cost FCFA 15,000. The adult language classes start from July 4 to September 17, 2016. These are workers, jobseekers, members of the clergy, diplomats, etc.

Normal adult classes cost FCFA 20,000 for morning session, FCFA 25,000 for afternoon session and FCFA 30,000 for evening session. After testing the students, special books are proposed to them to buy in the centre for their learning.

Mathurin Ze said the problem that the school faces is that of poor attendance as most of the students are workers and some go on missions. He however said for those who have paid their fees, they can attend classes in any bilingual training programme centre in any part of the country when they are on mission.

Apart from that there is the problem of energy. He said sometimes when there is power failure it is impossible to teach because the centre has video and audio courses.