Teaching French as a Foreign Language to Iranian Adult Learners: Problems and Solutions

Abstract

This article is a general overview on the problems that stand in the way of Iranian adult learners of French. The article
introduces the linguistic background of learners as one of the factors causing problems for them. English, the language they learnt during
school years, and Persian, their mother tongue, are introduced as the main sources of these problems and this is because of the
differences they have with French. The problems are categorized into three categories of discriminating phonemes and segmenting
words, pronouncing and writing adjectives and finally pronouncing and writing verbs. Attempt has been made to offer some solutions for
the existing problems as well. Teaching phonemes meticulously from the very outset of training can be one of the solutions to this
problem. As the next step, after acquiring some preliminary skills by learners, teachers should focus on some other aspects including
self correction and self monitoring exercises. They should also ask learners to record their voice and listen to it and to guess the
meaning from context.