Some studies of the St. Lucian language situation have reported that St. Lucians are ambivalent toward French Creole and English, two dominant varieties spoken on the island. Recent sociolinguistic surveys have reported the emergence of an English lexicon vernacular that is now widely spoken, mostly by younger generations in and around the urban centres and in rural areas as well. This paper reports the findings of a study on the attitudes of student teachers toward the three language varieties.

This paper is an investigation of the language varieties understood and used by teachers, and recognition of the implications of these understandings for language education. It acknowledges the role played by teachers and the education system in language maintenance and language change in a period of mass education, which is now moving toward universal secondary education (USE).