Multilingual Digital Tools for Environmental Protection and Eco-Citizenship: What Type of Integration for Empowerment of Adult Learning?

Cameroon and the Democratic Republic of the Congo participated in projects launched by the International Organisation of La Francophonie. We chose the project relating to the SDGs and present part of the results in this paper. In Cameroon, nearly 33per cent of adults are illiterate. However, nearly half of these illiterate people can read in their mother tongues, French and English, at a basic level. They therefore need to be educated about languages to become literate. Bi/plurilingual training is developed in programmes such as the operational programme for language teaching in Cameroon. The African Union and international organisations promote bi/plurilingual teaching practices, but challenges remain. Among these challenges is functional adult literacy. Although adults are seen as people with more learning abilities than children, access to information becomes restricted if they cannot read or write. However, they can access digital tools and manipulate them for self-training in a specific area. In this study, we explore the influence of an online multilingual lexicon focused on the protection of the environment and eco-citizenship on the learning of standards and practices by adults. We use a qualitative–quantitative method and a theoretical framework based on interactionism and functionalism. The results indicate a lack of knowledge of the use of terminology audience. The experiment should be continued by adapting exercises to the lexicon, and a form should be developed to register those who wish to continue this type of literacy training through a hybrid device.