A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the award of the degree Licence en Langue et Littérature Anglaises.

RESUME,

The present study intends to identifs some learning problems that students who are learning Chinese Language in Confucius Institute at the University of Burundi encounter during their learning process. This work is made up of three ains: first, it identifies those learning problems; second, it investigates the potential causes of those problems and third, it finds out the possible solutions to those problems.
In order to achieve the above mentioned aims, two ways were used. Those are questionnaires administered to both learners and teachers of Chinese in Confucius Institute, and the classroom observations done in differnt classes of the same Institute. The population of fifty learners and five teachers was used.
The results for the aims of the work are the following: both teachers and learners have problems in their teaching or learning . Problems like the mastery of the four Chinese tones, the mastery of the Chines characters and vocabulary, reading and writing. The pronunciation and memorization of Chinese characters are also problems that have been identified during my research study. The problem of time has also been found since the Chinese classes are scheduled right after class. As far as the causes are concerned, minimal time given to Chinise lessons, the Chinese speaking speaking environment, the source language, the time table, other academic activities, the late age of larning Chinese and the lack of Chinese-English or Chinese-French books or dictionary have been found. Possible solutions to remedy those problems have been provided.