Teacher trainees struggling with English

DENISE DENNIS, JAMAICA OBSERVERAS the country continues to come to grips with the below-average performance of students in English language at the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) level, at least two teachers' colleges have confirmed that their trainees also struggle to master the language.Shortwood Teachers' College Principal Elaine Foster-Allen said the college, located in upper St Andrew, has found itself having to deal with the serious challenge of trainees being unable to speak standard English."The issues are with us even at the teacher-training level. There are students who come in and they have passed English A with a [grade] one, or two, or three, and they still have difficulties in the use of the language; in writing it, in teaching it. and even in thinking in it. We have some problems," she said.She said the challenges are directly related to how Jamaican children are taught from the basic school level through to high school."Too many of us have been wedded to the idea that we must get the children to pass [exams], and not to learn. Not to learn how to learn, but to pass, and that's been a huge part of the problem," she said.Foster-Allen said she supports the view that the English language should be taught as a second language in order to solve the problem."For too long we have taught our children English as though it were their first language. English is not our first language. Patois is our first language, and we have done our children a disservice by not teaching them English as a second language," she said.She added that in order to support the development of student-teachers' use of the language across the college, Shortwood is currently revising its language use policy to ensure it maximises their opportunities to speak standard English. She said the college also offers an English as a second language course."We want them to speak the Jamaican standard English so that it becomes automatic to know when it is right and appropriate to switch from patois to standard," she said.Gwen Melhado, principal of St Joseph's Teachers' College on Old Hope Road in St Andrew, said her college also faces a challenge in getting trainees to be fluent in English before leaving the institution to go into the classroom."It is Jamaica and, you know, most of the students that come to us, they speak creole. As it's their mother tongue, they come into college speaking more creole than speaking standard English," she said.Melhado, who heads the Roman Catholic institution catering to almost 800 teachers in training, said the topic is a sensitive one, but that St Joseph's has tried to attack the problem through engaging students in practising use of the language."What we do here at St Joseph's, in order to help the students to articulate better [and] to write better, is really practice. We try to engage students in doing a lot of oral work, so English is not only written, but they have a lot of opportunities to speak it," she said.She said lecturers not only follow the syllabus, but they model the way students are expected to speak when they venture into their own students' classrooms. She said trainees are graded for English in every coursethey do.St Joseph's trains teachers for the early childhood and primary level.The Mico University College President Professor Claude Packer, in an inaugural presentation to a cohort of new students at the start of the school year, also emphasised the need for trainee teachers to be bilingual."Students must see the necessity to be bilingual; they must be conversant in standard English, along with their home language and know when it is appropriate to communicate with the most effective one," he said.The CSEC English pass rate plummeted to 47 per cent this year, down from 67 per cent a year ago.Earlier this month, Education Minister Ronald Thwaites, addressing the official launch of the Jamaica Reading Association's Literacy Conference, underscored the critical need for Jamaican students to be fluent in the English language, noting that this is critical for the country's progress."There can absolutely be no compromise about this, and teachers... and those of us who are engaged in promoting education must learn to be fluent in English, and we must instruct in English in order that even if we use our own native language, it must be used as a tool to the English language and not as a substitute thereof," he stated.To read more, click here.