A Different, not an Incorrect, Way of Speaking, Pt 7
In the just-ended conference on 'Caribbean linguistics: Theory and application', held at UWI, St. Augustine during August 13-17, one of the more interesting papers for me was Jeff Siegel's with the title 'Bringing Creole into the Classroom: Views from outside the Caribbean'. Siegel is an associate professor of linguistics at the University of New England in Australia as well as Director of the Charlene Sato Center for Pidgin, Creole and Dialect Studies at the University of Hawai'i. He wrote his paper as part of the debate in Hawai'i, other states in America, and Creole contexts generally over whether Pidgins and Creoles should be used in formal education.
Bringing Creole into the Classroom…
Siegel examines some of the arguments in the debate against the background of past and present approaches to the teaching of English in Creole contexts and proposes a 'different' approach which sees Creoles as an educational resource, backing this up with research which shows that the use of Creoles as such is beneficial, not detrimental. In doing so, he is aware that entrenched attitudes and misinformation will hinder the acceptance of his approach in the short term, but he believes that success will come in the long run, at least in Hawai'i.
He treats both Standard English and Creole as dialects and, consequently, views the process of acquiring Standard English as 'second dialect acquisition'. He notes that in places such as Hawai'i and the anglophone Caribbean, Standard English is the dominant dialect (the D2) in socio-political and educational terms while Creole (the D1) is by association regarded as a degenerate form of the D2, even though it is the dialect spoken by the vast majority.
In describing general approaches to teaching the D2 in Creole contexts, he observes as follows. First, the D2 was taught as if the D1 did not exist; then it was taught with the concession that the D1 was indeed a legitimate language (but still a hindrance to education); then it was taught as a foreign language (in respect of some of its aspects). The first approach translated into eradication of the students' D1, the second into partial accommodation, the third into fuller accommodation.
Language teaching methods that emanated from such approaches include 1) the extremely boring Audiolingual Method of laboratory drills and practices, focused on habit formation and oral fluency but disconnected from real-life interaction; 2) the more enlightened Communicative Language Teaching, which emphasises language function and use in real-life interaction but which is faced with the hurdle of students, already possessed of a lexically related D1 that is more than capable of handling their normal communication needs, seeing no point in substituting the D2; and 3) Immersion in the society and culture of the D2, which is operationally impractical and costly, and often translates as submersion.
To varying degrees, all the approaches and their particular methodologies are still in use in formal education, including the approach in which teachers, wittingly or unwittingly, seek to have their students learn Standard English at the expense of their Creole and self-esteem. It is an approach underlain by beliefs such as the following:
· Creole (NOT factors such as poor teaching policy, infrastructure, content and methodology) is to be blamed for poor results in education generally and Standard English in particular.
· English is the mother tongue; Creole is just a degenerate, imperfect form of it.
· Creole is a serious hindrance to social opportunity and self-development.
Such an approach is reflected in this 1999 statement by the chairman of Hawai'i's State Board of Education:
If your thinking is not in Standard English, it's hard for you to write in Standard English. If you speak pidgin, you think pidgin, you write pidgin…. We ought to have classrooms where Standard English is the norm.
Siegel adduces research evidence that the accommodation of Creole in the classroom has beneficial results, and he proposes an approach built around public awareness and teacher education. In respect of the former, he and collaborators have come up with the following initiatives: 1) establishment of the website (www.une.edu.au/langnet) which provides non-technical information to non-linguists on pidgins, Creoles, and Standard English; 2) formation (in 1998) of a discussion group and lobby called 'Da Pidgin Coup' (all puns intended!) which has already drafted a position paper 'Pidgin and Education', available at the website www.hawaii.edu/sls/pidgin.html, as a basis for public discussion and negotiations with public officials; and 3) workshops on language awareness for teachers and other educators.
The language awareness approach involves a 'noticing hypothesis' according to which, noticing Standard English forms which are not yet proficiently acquired and seeing differences and similarities between analogous Creole forms is necessary for effective acquisition of the target forms.
Siegel is sanguine about the advantages of the language awareness approach, but he is also aware of the resistance that will continue coming from both a misinformed officialdom and the general public. He concludes his paper tellingly as follows:
The language awareness program has demonstrated benefits for Creole-speaking children in increasing their competence in the standard variety, while at the same time [giving them] a greater appreciation of their own language and culture. But since this approach involves bringing Creole into the classroom, it will not be readily accepted by many administrators, teachers and parents, no matter what the research shows. Linguists and applied linguists need to realise that the trickle-down theory doesn't work with knowledge any more than it does with money. Thus, taking a proactive approach to informing people about the issues may be a way to change attitudes and eventually gain acceptance of innovative and potentially beneficial teaching approaches.
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