| Background
The Jamaican Language Unit is conducting a pilot project in
Bilingual education for primary school students enrolled in
Grades One to Four. The Bilingual Education project is aimed
at determining the most effective means of encouraging full
bilingualism for primary level students at the Grades 1 –
4 in Jamaican (Jamaican Creole) (JC) and Standard Jamaican
English (SJE).
The Project is designed to meet the needs of the large numbers
of students who are native speakers of Jamaican and who enter
Grade One without attaining mastery in three out of four key
areas of “readiness to begin instruction at the level
demanded by the Grade One National Curriculum” (NAP
Final Report 2000 p.38 in Draft LEP 2001, p. 9). The Project
also targets the majority of students who do not attain full
literacy in English by Grade Four. Recent results for the
Grade One Readiness Inventory show that over half the students
leaving pre-primary do not achieve the requisite skills and
58% of the Grade Four cohort for the same year were categorized
as either “At Risk” or “Questionable”
on the Grade Four Literacy Test (NAP Final Report 2000 in
Draft LEP 2001, p.11).
It is also critical for us to note that the Ministry of Education
Youth and Culture (MOEYC) has set out in this draft policy
document five possible options for bilingual education in
Jamaica. The first 3 of which are detailed here:
1. Declare the Jamaican Language situation bilingual ascribing
equal language
status to SJE and JC. Tailor instruction to accommodate this
status and permit instruction and assessment in both languages.
Produce printed materials in both languages, and permit teaching
in both languages using appropriate instructional strategies.
2. While retaining SJE as the official language, promote
the acquisition of
basic literacy in the early years (eg. K – 3) in the
home language and facilitate the development of English as
a second language.
3. Maintain SJE as the official language and promote basic
communication
through the oral use of the home language in the early years
(e.g. K – 3) while facilitating the development of literacy
in English.
(Draft Language Education Policy, 2001 p. 20).
At present MOYEC has adopted Option 3, despite reservations
as it was viewed as the most feasible. The objections to Options
1 and 2 (p. 20) are on the grounds that they are ‘…
not immediately feasible as there is no agreed orthography
for Jamaican Creole. Besides, issues such as funding for the
adequate supply of literacy materials as well as political
and social attitudes to Creole as a medium of instruction
(Bryan 2000), particularly the latter, could present obstacles
difficult to overcome’.
The Draft LEP also points to the fluid nature of Jamaican
and SJE and the difficulties presented by the similarities
between the two. The ambivalent attitude of the society to
the use of Jamaican has been another obstacle cited in arguing
against the adoption of bilingual education. The Bilingual
Education Project proposes to address both these issues directly.
Teaching literacy in Jamaican and separately in English and
using each of these languages separately as subject areas
and medium of instruction, will give students the means to
distinguish between the two. It is also fair to expect that
giving equal status and time to JC and SJE in the classroom
will undermine the ambivalent attitude that exists towards
Jamaican and promote high self-esteem and value for their
own first language experiences.
- In addition, the Ministry of Education, Youth and Culture
(MOEYC) recognizes
- the Jamaican language situation as bilingual;
- English as the official language
- Jamaican Creole as the language most widely used in the
population
- Spanish as the preferred foreign language, owing to the
geographic location of the country.
(Draft Language Education Policy, 2001 p. 20)
According to the Draft LEP, in keeping with the CARICOM Standing
Committee of Ministers responsible for Education on goals
for those leaving secondary schools, such students should
‘… recognise that SJE and JC are equally valid
and regard bilingualism as a positive attribute … [and
be able to] use Standard Jamaican English for a variety of
purposes; use and understand Jamaican Creole in oral and written
forms’ (p. 22). However the Draft LEP does not specify
what writing system and whether this system should be standard.
This is in spite of the fact that the Barbuda guidelines state
that those leaving secondary school should be able to ‘…use
and understand a linguistically valid script for representing
the creole-related vernaculars of their communities’
(Draft I of LEP, p. 5). The Bilingual Education Plus Project
would use the standard writing system based on the Cassidy,
as developed, taught and promoted by The Jamaican Language
Unit (The Jamaican Observer, Educational Supplement, December
2003, January 2004).
The Draft L.E.P. requires that all language/literacy teachers,
primary secondary and English options should ‘…
complete an approved course in – JC and SJE as two separate
languages …’. This approach is necessary but in
our view not sufficient. The same degree of distinctness between
the two codes needs to be conveyed by actual usage and practice
in the system of teaching and instruction within the classroom.
It is after all, a language awareness amongst pupils that
one is ultimately aiming at. This will only come from a demonstration
of the fact that in the learning – teaching situation
the two languages are separate and equal. Achieving this goal
can only be arrived at from real experience of an education
system, which practices what it preaches.
As an addendum, we should note (Draft LEP p. 26) that one
of the stated implications for policy implementation is the
responsibility of the GOJ to ‘facilitate internationally
funded literacy-focused projects’. The Bilingual Education
Project is one such programme. This is complemented by one
of the goals of Teacher Education in the Draft LEP, which
requires teachers to ‘… engage in on-going experimenting
with various approaches to language/literacy teaching and
in related classroom research’ (Draft LEP, p. 25).
The Bilingual Education Project proposes to address:
(i) the writing system issue
(ii) the literacy materials supply issue
(iii) the political and social attitudes supposedly associated
with the use of Jamaican as a medium of instruction’
(p. 20).
This goal will be achieved by combining the approaches set
out in Options 1 and 2 of the Draft LEP above. This involves,
a) redesigning instruction to support bilingualism with Jamaican
and SJE enjoying equal status in grades I – 4, b) providing
learning – teaching materials in both languages, c)
training teachers in the specialist area of Jamaican language
instruction.
The experience of other bi and multilingual populations leads
us to believe that greater fluency and literacy can be achieved
in SJE if students are taught their first language (Jamaican)
as a subject area and taught in their first language as a
medium of instruction. Projects functioning on these assumptions
include the San Andres Project 2000 Trilingual Pilot Educational
Program, and the upcoming Belize Kriol Project to give some
Caribbean examples.
It is against this background that The Jamaican Language
Unit submits this proposal. It includes Research Objectives,
Methodology, Timing, Cost and Unit Profile.
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