Policies with regard to language in education in the Caribbean regionhave historically been formulated on the basis of considerations not necessarily related to the linguistic realities of the speech communities of the region. In the last two decades however political change and increased linguistic information have allowed adjustments to be made so that curricula might try to reflect to some extent goals that will satisfy the needs of the populations for which they were designed.

This paper examines the speech of Jamaican Creole (JC)-speaking two-year-olds in urban Kingston, with specific reference to interactions using the ‘wh-’ question constructions ‘Whose?’, ‘Where?’, ‘What is X doing’ and their JC equivalents. Of interest here, is a consideration of the range of JC and Standard Jamaican English (SJE) question constructions understood by the children, as well as the forms of the answers provided by them. Findings are that code-mixing of JC and SJE is characteristic of the speech of these children.

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).

The political dimension of English language education in Commonwealth Caribbean colonial societies has been widely recognised both within and outside of the Caribbean (Bryan 2002; Pennycooke 1995; Ricento 2000).

Language Education in the Caribbean: Selected Articles by Dennis Craig is a carefully selected collection of the writings of the late Dennis Craig (1929–2004). Edited by Jeannete Allsopp and Zellynne Jennings, the book contains eight of Craig’s “most representative articles” with a focus on language education in the Commonwealth Caribbean. The book is a rich resource for its intended audience of language teachers, creolists, practitioners and researchers in the field of Caribbean language education.