A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of degree" Licencié en Langue et Littérature Anglaises"

RESUME

Burundian traders are used to using Kirundi, Kiswahili, and French languages in their business, However, English has nowadays become an international language used in many services such as intenet, business, technology, writings, and other important things used by many people. This causes many problems to those traders when they are communicating with English speakers ; they have to be able to use English in order to facilitate communication with them.

This study focuses on the English speaking problems encountered by Bujumbura central market traders. It was conducted in Bujumbura supermaket with 30 informants with all kinds of traders whether intellectual or illiterate.
Questionnaires wee used in conducting this study. Interviews were also used for traders who are not able to neither read nor write.

Our hypotheses were that Bujumbura central market traders have problems related to the English speaking skill. In addition, Bujumbura central market traders' lack of English speaking skill is due to the interference of their mother tongue and to the lack of appropriate expressions.