A nation of 'faux' English speakers

Sunday, August 21, 2011

Dear Editor,

It is time that we acknowledge that the vast majority of Jamaicans are not native speakers of English, in the linguistic sense, as native competence is acquired in the home from one's earliest years and is used both to receive and convey information to members of one's family and community.

In Jamaica, we see a wholly different phenomenon in which there is a dominant language used in media/braodcasting, business and by the judiciary (in formal court proceedings and so on), while another is the norm for everyday interactions within families, among friends, among colleagues and even between strangers in mundane settings like on public transportation.

Hearing a language on TV and speaking it throughout your formative years are two very different things. Language must be heard, understood and used to be mastered by an infant and thus become a "native" mastery. Hearing and understanding simply aren't enough, and yet, this is the presumption upon which our educational system is based. The singular linguistic context that characterises Jamaica and many others nations throughout the region and the world (North Africa also has a similar dynamic in some nations) has serious implications for child learning as we currently teach our children English Language using the same skill-building approaches that are used for native speakers of English (children who grow up in a household and an environment where English is not only heard on TV but is also the main means of communication within the family).

So, essentially, we are teaching children who are native "creolophones" or speakers of patois/creole with the assumptions of standard English sensibility and this has led to the current scholastic mess in which we find ourselves where students are simply not grasping the essence of what is being taught and have alarming comprehension difficulties throughout their primary and secondary school careers. Children who are not native speakers of English cannot and will not perform efficiently if they have not been given some ESL (English as a Second Language) initiation to standard English so they have points of reference to better understand the syntax, morphology and mechanics of English.

This familiarisation process will also require a parallel introduction to the structure and foundations of Jamaican patois — how the verbs are applied, how negation is expressed, how tense is conveyed and so on. It is not by accident that the same child who is considered "dunce" in English classes often can excel in French or Spanish. If the child had a real linguistic handicap this would not be the case, but again and again I encounter students who appear to be incompetent in their other subjects (because of their poor mastery of English), but who excel in foreign languages.

Why is this? Because in foreign language instruction, prior knowledge cannot be assumed and so the child is introduced to every aspect of the language in terms of structure, meaning and sound from the very first class. In the end, the student develops a solid understanding of how it works and then applies this information to communicate accurately. I have seen many "creolophone" students struggle with a grammatical concept in French (which I teach) until I gave an equivalent in patois and then you literally saw the lights turn on in their eyes. They got it, because they could relate to it in their native language which is not English.

It is time that we develop a real policy on this issue -- one that goes beyond mere biblical translation, tourism guides and poetry -- to discover, appreciate and help our students understand their language; their native language better so that they are not hindered in their learning. The notion that teaching patois turns students away from the progress that English represents is a fallacy. Teaching any child the structure of his or her native language is always a positive step towards knowledge and greater understanding.

Until we surmount the post-colonial baggage and shame that distort how we see patois, we will never enable our children and nation to excel as they ought. In short, a time wi teach wi pickey dem 'ow fi undastand weh wi waan' dem learn.

Craig Bloomfield

Out-going Head of Modern Languages

St Hugh's High School

craig.bloomfield@gmail.com

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A nation of 'faux' English speakers