The prime minister’s declaration that Spanish will be Jamaica’s second language makes me wonder even more about our linguistic identity and the how we teach speakers of multiple languages.

We learn from the language education policy that the Ministry of Education recognises the Jamaican language situation as bilingual, with English as our official language and Jamaican Creole acknowledged as the language most widely used by the population, and Spanish the preferred foreign language.

So what is it really, Mr PM?

With two languages already acknowledged, which will be bumped down to third when Spanish becomes our official second language?

The fact is, the debates about the social status of English and Jamaican Creole are yet to be settled. The 2005 Language Attitude Survey of Jamaica conducted by University of the West Indies’ Jamaican Language Unit not only confirms that Jamaicans (78.6 per cent consider ourselves bilingual, but it amplified the seemingly never-ending struggle for linguistic identity. The survey showed that Jamaicans want their patois to be made an official language — alongside English — and that we would appreciate bilingual education, that is, schools that teach children to read and write in Jamaican and English.

The confirmation and acceptance of learners’ mother tongue, first language or L1 in language instruction is of international concern connected to Global Goal #4 — Quality Education. As recently as February 2016, UNESCO published Policy Paper 24, part of the Global Education Monitoring Report, which argues that being taught and taking tests in languages that they do not speak at home hinders children’s early acquisition of critically important reading and writing skills. The report goes on to show that “mother tongue-based bilingual (or multilingual) education approaches, in which the learners’ mother tongue is taught alongside the introduction of a second language, can improve performance in the second language as well as in other languages”.

Each year we lament performance scores of language and communication components of assessment from the Grade Four Literacy Test all the way to the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate, and even at the tertiary level. Generally, these lamentations return to debates about teacher competence. In September 2015, a British Council study pointed to the fact that (Jamaican) teachers were not always confident in their use of English in the classroom and that they are not equipped with a useful method of English language teaching. Is there such a method?

As we continue to welcome investments and deepen relations with our Spanish-speaking neighbours and our heavy-spending friends from the East, do we expect that these investors, their employees, students, and families might relocate to Jamaica? If so, how are we preparing Jamaican teachers to teach English to our own bilingual students and these speakers of other languages?

Conversely, are we deliberately preparing Jamaicans to move into these nations and to fill their need for teachers of English? Because English facilitates international communication, Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) has become a global industry and those with internationally recognised TESOL certification could access the socio-economic benefits of this industry — even online from ‘yaad’!

TESOL therefore, can be proposed as that ‘useful method’ of English Language teaching that will benefit our own students and aid their mastery of multiple languages – ‘patwa’, English and Spanish. It is also my firm position that having cohorts of TESOL-certified Jamaicans gives our Government another bargaining chip at the investment table with speakers of other languages.

Nadine Muschette is a Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages-certified Jamaican educator serving in Asia. Send comments to the Observer or muschetten@gmail.com.