Dictation remains candidate’s greatest problem. Most of them spelt words in English instead of French for example in passage B candidates wrote "person" for "personne" "une bonne lesson" for 'une bonne leҫon' "suprise" for "surprise" "june" for "jeune". Some of them failed to put accent on words they wrote, e.g. frappe" instead of "frappe" "decide" instead of "decide" "jour-la" instead of jour-la" decus instead of "deҫus
Most of candidate’s difficulties stem from their poor knowledge of French grammar which can be summarized as follows:

(a)     Failure to make adjectives agree with the nouns which they qualify e.g. some candidates wrote:
(i) "Deux jeune filles" instead of "Deux jeunes filles"
(ii) "Leurs parent" instead of "Leurs parents"
(iii) "Ses parent" instead of "Ses parents (Passage A)

(b) Inability to distinguish between verbs that are conjugated with "avoir" and those that are conjugated with "etre" e.g. many candidates wrote:
(i)    "Les parents ant decide§" (Passage A) instead of "Les parents ant decide"
(ii)   "Nous sommes parti" (Passage B) instead of No us sommes partis"
(iii)  "Elle est descendu" (Passage B) instead of "Elle est descendue"

(c)     Inability to understand the distinction between the infinitive and passe compose.
          A good number of the candidates wrote:
          "Elle a frapper" (Passage B) instead of "Elle a frappe"
          "Elle a decider quand meme" (passge B) instead of "elle a decide quand meme"

(d)     Inability of a candidates’ to cross check whether the sentences they have written down made sense or not, for instance some of the candidates wrote:
(i)  "vert dix-huit heures" (Passage A) instead of "vers dix-huit heures"
(ii)  "verre miniut" (Passage B) instead of "vers minuit"
(iii) "au q'une reponse" (Passage B) instead of "aucune reponse"
(iv) "ce aussi" (Passage B) instead of "ceux-ci"

Most of the candidates instead of observing the punctuation marks wrote them down for instance
"a la ligne" "virgule"
"point d'exclamation"
"point final"

Some of them left blank spaces for words they could not spell

In the Dialogue and Exposition segments, most of the candidates could not attempt questions on Civilization and Background studies. A good number of them had some difficulty with the meaning and functions of organizations such as CEDEAO, ONU, SCOA, EU.

Teachers of French should pay more attention to Dictation during classes

The students should be exposed to Dictation drills after each French Lesson

They should encourage the students to give their responses in complete sentences during classes. Emphasis should be placed on all tenses and accents.
Teachers should endeavour to practice all aspects of the Oral French with their students before the examination. Particular attention should be paid to the Civilization aspect of the French studies.
They should teach the students the French punctuation marks
The students should be encouraged to read simple French stories, journals and magazines to acquire more vocabulary.