Teaching French Pronunciation to Yoruba L1 Speakers: Challenges and Strategies in Ibadan Secondary Schools

Phonological interference from Yoruba, a tonal language with a distinct phonemic inventory, presents well-documented challenges for Nigerian learners of French at the secondary school level. This study investigates the specific pronunciation challenges faced by Yoruba first language speakers learning French in Ibadan, Oyo State, and evaluates the corrective strategies employed by their teachers. A mixed methods design was adopted, combining classroom observation across fifteen purposively selected secondary schools with structured interviews administered to twenty-five French teachers and recorded speech sample analysis of 180 student volunteers. Phonological error analysis was applied to identify the most frequent pronunciation deviations from standard French. Results show that nasal vowels, the uvular fricative /R/, and the distinction between voiced and voiceless consonant pairs posed the greatest difficulty for Yoruba-speaking learners. Teachers predominantly relied on explicit phonetic explanation and repetition drills, with minimal use of audio recordings or phonological contrastive analysis. Only 38% of observed classrooms used any form of recorded French speech as a pronunciation model. The study recommends the integration of audio-lingual approaches, phonetic awareness training, and digital pronunciation tools into French pedagogy in Oyo State secondary schools. Pre-service French teacher programmes at universities in the state are advised to include practical phonetics courses that address Yoruba-French contrastive phonology. Keywords: French pronunciation, phonological interference, Yoruba speakers, Ibadan, language teaching