A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Award of the degree "licece en langue et littérature Anglaises"

RÉSUME,

The following study aims at finding different causes of pronunciation diffuculties of francophone learners of English at the University of Burundi; In the methodology chapter, the research showed the used method in order to collect and analyze the data. English majors at the University of Burundi were used as the research population and the communication through a written questionnaire as the research instrument was used. It was found that the pronunciation difficulties of Francophone learners of English have different causes such as; the lackof motivation on the students' behalf, some students were not even interested in English pronunciation learning since secondary school; others were orientated in English department against their will. In addition, the absence of English speaking community in Burundi hampers the English majors' pronunciation improvement. Moreover, the lack of adequate teaching materials plays in causing their pronunciation difficulties. The last but not the least causeof Francophone learners od English pronunciation difficulties is the age factore, it was found that one hundred percentage of the respondents started learning English as a foreign language beyond the critical period.
It was recommended that the ministry of higher education should take into consideration the students' linguistic background before orientating them in the English department. In addition, the government should increase the budget given each year to the ministry of high education so that students can get enough audio-visual teaching materials in order to improve their English pronunciation. The last important recommendation was directed to the students, they have to feel responsible of their learning whatever conditions they are facing; they have to look for artificial ways to improve their pronunciation skills.