This study aimed at investigating mother tongue-based bilingual education and concept formation of children in Bafut in the North West Region of Cameroon. A quasi-experimental design was adopted whereby 20 male and female children were purposefully selected for the study. An adapted version of the Mayer and Mayer (1975) picture description task, a language comprehension test, as well as a sociolinguistic Questionnaire were used to measure the language proficiency of participants. Both the bilingual and monolingual samples were administered the symbol substitution task, the Dimension Change Card Sort (DCCS), Test of Linear measurement and object classification task to measure their concept formation abilities. Data were analyzed using a pre-designed EpiData Version 3.1, SPSS version 21.0, Mann-Whitney U test and Spearman’s Rho correlation test. Results indicate that there was no bilingual advantage in the various tasks. The main explanation for no bilingual advantage lies in the fact that a predominantly subtractive bilingual sample was used. Recommendations were made to stake holders, as well as suggestions for further research and conclusion.
Mother tongue, Bilingual education, subtractive bilingualism, concept formation
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