The language of instruction - Jamaican Creole or Standard Jamaican English?

Esther Tyson, Contributor

By 2030 every child in our country will have the best learning environment. Each person will leave school at the secondary level with at least five CXC subjects including English, mathematics and a foreign language (grades 1-3), and will have a working skill. (Vision 2030)

Amid the present debate and controversy concerning the outcomes of our education system and the benefits accrued to teachers, is a concern that I have. This concern relates to the decreasing thrust to teach Standard Jamaican English (SJE) at our tertiary institutions and rather to focus on the use of Jamaican Creole (JC) in the classrooms.

It is generally acknowledged that the world is a global village. The possibility of travel to various nations has exceeded the expectations of Jamaicans even 20 years ago. Jamaicans are working in diverse corners of the earth. This means that we need to prepare our people to communicate with persons from different nations.

Added to this is the reality that we do not have the ability, in present economic situations, to provide jobs for the many students who are leaving tertiary institutions. The best way to prepare our students to compete globally is to teach a language that is the acknowledged language of business and commerce globally, which is English.

Our training institutions acknowledge that our children coming into school at the early childhood stage and primary level will use JC as their first language. Our teachers, however, need to be trained and become adept at helping our children to acquire SJE as a second language. This should become the language of instruction. In this way, our students will become immersed in the language.

Immersion situation

This is particularly important since there are many homes where children are not exposed to hearing SJE spoken. The schools, therefore, need to provide that immersion situation, along with formal instruction, to make successful acquisition of English aptitude possible.

Even though this approach should be self-evident, it is not happening in many of our schools. Why? Many of our universities and teacher-training institutions are not ensuring that all teachers of English are trained to teach English as a second language. Therefore, as I go into some classrooms, I hear many teachers conversing with the students in JC freely. On one occasion, a young English teacher at the secondary level was asked why she did not use SJE. Her response was because the students said they would not understand her.

In other situations, I have heard primary-school children correcting teachers' use of JC instead of SJE. It seems, then, that we can no longer depend on the teacher to be a standard of how SJE should be spoken. If homes, therefore, do not provide the environment within which SJE is learnt; if the media cannot be depended on to present models of how to use the language; and if schools cannot provide examples of how the language is to be used, how do we expect our children to be prepared linguistically to compete in the global market?

How do we expect to meet the target of Vision 2030? How do we expect the CSEC English results to improve?

This comment from the Report on Candidates' Work in the CSEC Examination May/June 2012 English A General Proficiency Examination sheds light on some of the issues:

"It is clear that large numbers of students across the Caribbean have not mastered the use of Standard English. There continues to be interference from dialects and patois used throughout the region; to these have been added the slangs originating from dancehall music and the North American ghettos and the abbreviations familiar to users of the messaging media of modern technology. For students who almost abhor reading, some methods must be found to encourage correct use of the language."

We know that only 46 per cent of the students that sat the English A Paper in 2012 achieved a passing grade. We need to be reminded that this is not the percentage of the complete cohort of grade 11. This percentage is based on those who were permitted to sit the examinations. There are many students who were not allowed to sit the examinations by schools that screen students. This means that the percentage pass rate for the grade 11 cohort is much lower.

Assist with English

If we are serious about preparing our students to compete in the global marketplace, we must begin to address this problem of no other country being able to communicate with our students who have the facility to only speak Jamaican Creole upon leaving secondary school. Our universities need to not only invest money in the study of Jamaican Creole but also assist such students in being competent in speaking and writing English.

One sad testament to how off track we are in this matter is reflected in the state of what used to be a useful and dynamic Writing Centre at the University of the West Indies, Mona. This centre catered to UWI students who needed help in preparing their assignments for submission to their teachers. Postgraduate students would be paid a stipend to dedicate some time to meeting with undergraduates to guide them with their essay writing.

I thought this was a well-needed service since complaints were often heard about the insufficient competence of university students in writing Standard Jamaican English. Yet this centre was closed because of lack of financial funding.

As a nation, we need to take another look at the currently popular approach to teaching our students in Jamaican Creole without assisting them to transition from our native language to SJE. There are too many teachers in the classrooms who have adopted the view that it is not necessary for them to be competent in SJE and, therefore, do not make an effort to set a standard for the children in speaking the language.

In addition, our teacher-training institutions need to place a strong emphasis on the teachers of English, learning the rules of JC, and how to help our students move from using our native language to understanding the rules of SJE and becoming adept at using it.

In addition, we need to become a nation where reading is encouraged. That discussion, however, is for another time.

I recommend that all teachers, especially teachers at the primary and secondary levels, use Dr Velma Pollard's book, From Jamaican Creole to Standard English: A Handbook for Teachers, as a guide in teaching students to understand the rules of JC and how to move to understanding and using SJE. It will help our students to improve their outcomes in the CSEC English A examination.

Esther Tyson is an educator. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and esther.tyson@gmail.com.