Creole Speakers and Standard Language Education (original) (raw)
Related papers
Creoles and Minority Dialects in Education: An Overview
Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 1999
This article describes some of the inequities and obstacles faced by speakers of creoles and related 'nonstandard' or minority dialects in formal education. It outlines some proposals for dealing with these problems and then describes some initiatives that have already been taken -such as developing resources for teachers, running public awareness campaigns and actually using the students' home varieties in the classroom. Three types of educational programmes are discussed: instrumental, accommodation and awareness, and the findings of research into each type are presented. This research reveals the educational, social and pyschological advantages of making use of creoles and minority varieties in the classroom. The article concludes with suggestions for future research and proactive initiatives for public education.
Creoles and Educational Policy
There are issues in Creole studies that intersect with first and second-language acquisition, historical linguistics, language policy, language pedagogy, and postcolonial politics. One such issue is the language of instruction in countries and communities where Creole languages coexist with their respective lexifier languages, such as Jamaica, Barbados, Mauritius, Réunion, and Martinique, to name only a few examples. Thanks in part to the efforts of linguists and anthropologists since the 1960s, Creole languages have gained legitimacy in several countries, and have been gradually introduced in education. In this article, I review two recent volumes focusing partially or exclusively on the role of Creole languages in education. The first volume, edited by B. Migge, I. Léglise and A. Bartens, describes and evaluates educational programs recently implemented in different countries and territories. The second volume is dedicated to Haitian Creole, with several contributions focusing on the use of Haitian in the education system.
Creoles and Minority Dialects in Education: An Update
Language and Education, 2007
This paper renews the call for greater interest in applied work to deal with the obstacles faced in formal education by speakers of creoles (such as Hawai‘i Creole and Jamaican Creole) and minority dialects (such as African American English). It starts off with an update on developments in the use of these vernacular languages in educational contexts since 1998, focusing on educational programmes, publications and research by linguists and educators. It goes on to discuss some of the research and public awareness efforts needed to help the speakers of these vernacular varieties, with examples given from Hawai‘i.
Teaching creole-speaking children: Issues, concerns and resolutions for the classroom
Australian Review of Applied Linguistics, 2013
There are now significant numbers of children who speak a language other than English when they enter the formal school system in Australia. Many of these children come from a language background that is entirely different from the school language. Many Indigenous children, however, come from creole-speaking backgrounds where their home language may share features with the school language whilst remaining substantially different in other ways. What often makes this situation more challenging is the tendency to view creole, rather than as a different language, as a kind of deficient version of the standard language. Children entering the school system with a creole thus often encounter considerable difficulties. In addition, teachers who are not trained in teaching creole-speaking children may not recognise these difficulties. This paper explores some of these issues in the Australian context with reference to home languages such as Kriol and Torres Strait Creole (TSC) as well as minority dialects such as Australian Aboriginal English (AAE), and discusses possible resolutions.
Creoles in Education. A Discussion of Pertinent Issues
2010
Department of Education. 2002a. Fundament voor Funderend Onderwijs: Nascholingsnoodzaak en basisaanbod nascholing voor de verdere invoering van Funderend Onderwijs. Manuscript, Willemstad, Curaçao. Department of Education. 2002b. Verschillende instructietaalmodellen in het Funderend Onderwijs: consequenties voor de uitvoering.
Negotiating Crosswinds: Trans-linguality, Transculturality and Trans-identification in the Greater Caribbean. , 2020
The English-based Creole in Trinidad has been seen as a language of low status for decades by some educators, parents and students. Although the Ministry of Education mandated that this substrate be used in the instructional process in classrooms, it was done so in a marginal way whereby it was 'tolerated' (Youssef ,2002) until the students' Caribbean Standard English was at an acceptable level. Teachers at Don Martina Central Secondary School* (DMCSS) express concerns about the usage of Creole in both students' speech and writing in the classroom, and some see it as a major reason for poor results at the Caribbean Examinations Council's (CXC) Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) English Language. This study seeks to provide a comparative insight into these perceptions held by teachers of English Language and teachers of other disciplines, with a view to addressing related concerns. The mixed method study was informed through the use of non-participant observation, structured group interviews and questionnaires. Data was transcribed, coded and categorized, then presented qualitatively and quantitatively. The study also offers recommendations to assist in the instructional process as well as in curriculum planning that may be of interest to all stakeholders inclusive of the Ministry of Education, the secondary school system, school administrators, language and non-language teachers, the home and, most importantly, the secondary school student.
Creoles in Education, 2010
Department of Education. 2002a. Fundament voor Funderend Onderwijs: Nascholingsnoodzaak en basisaanbod nascholing voor de verdere invoering van Funderend Onderwijs. Manuscript, Willemstad, Curaçao. Department of Education. 2002b. Verschillende instructietaalmodellen in het Funderend Onderwijs: consequenties voor de uitvoering.
Sustainable Multilingualism, 2019
Summary Regional languages in France have historically struggled to find their place in the national linguistic landscape, and French-based Creoles, like those of Guadeloupe and Martinique, are no exception. Despite laws and initiatives like the creation of the Creole CAPES (2002) and the propagation of research like Poth (1997) and Cummins (2009) on the benefits of bilingualism, Creole-language education in French overseas departments, like Guadeloupe, is still stigmatized for a lack of standardization by academic policymakers, despite its attested success in the classroom as a tool for improving students’ metalinguistic capacities in French. Using a corpus of official Creole-language educational guides, pedagogical guides and one elementary textbook featuring exercises focusing on correction of regional French phrases, along with observations of two elementary Creole-language classes in Guadeloupe, this paper aims to analyze and demonstrate that educators often receive mixed messa...