This monograph discusses the linguistic problems posed by the teaching and learning of non-African languages in multilingual African situations. Chapter 1 identifies and discusses the linguistic problems of foreign language education. Chapter 2 examines (1) the nature of linguistic descriptions, (2) the assumptions underlying contrastive analysis generally held to be indispensable to foreign language teaching, and (3) descriptive problems such as linguistic norm specification and deviation from the norm with reference to French. Chapter 3 discusses findings of research on French language contact in the Ivory Coast and Ghana. The purpose of this research is not only to invite researchers in the field of foreign language education to reflect on the descriptive and analytic linguistic problems discussed but also to help reorient research in this branch of linguistics in Africa and elsewhere. (Author/NCR)