In Trinidad and Tobago, exposure to the structure of English through written materials has been of special significance, for this has been the chief means by which the language has been learnt. Opportunities for speaking Internationally Acceptable English (I.A.E.) have always been few, and the barriers to successful English language learning have been formidable. In fact, one must accept as true the statement that a high percentage of our language learners hear and attempt to speak I.A.E. in the classroom only, and even then, not during every class.
One would expect that the linguistic structures presented in the Language Arts textbooks used in the schools would be appropriately graded and selected for the particular group of children and would be unquestionable in their acceptability. For a variety of reasons this is not the case. Firstly, there is a difference in linguistic background between the British children for whom the texts, with few exceptions, were intended, and the children of Trinidad and Tobago, on whom they are being foisted. The former use the texts to assist them in the mastery of their mother tongue; the latter use them to learn a language that is, in many respects, foreign to them. No textbook can serve two such dissimilar purposes. Thus, in our study, while some attention is paid to features which are undesirable from any standpoint, our main concern is with the suitability of these textbooks for our special needs.
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