Creoles in education : an appraisal of current programs and projects

366 Pages·2010·9.19 MB·English

by  Bettina Migge

Creoles in Education
Creole Language Library (CLL)
A book series presenting descriptive and theoretical studies designed to add
significantly to the data available on pidgin and creole languages.
Editors
Miriam Meyerhoff Umberto Ansaldo
University of Edinburgh The University of Hong Kong
Editorial Advisory Board
Mervyn C. Alleyne Pieter Muysken
Kingston, Jamaica Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Marlyse Baptista Peter Mühlhäusler
Ann Arbor, USA Adelaide, Australia
George L. Huttar Shobha Satyanath
Dallas, USA Delhi, India
John Holm John Victor Singler
Coimbra, Portugal New York, USA
Silvia Kouwenberg Norval Smith
Kingston, Jamaica Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Susanne Michaelis Sarah G. Thomason
Leipzig, Germany Ann Arbor, USA
Salikoko S. Mufwene Tonjes Veenstra
Chicago, USA Berlin, Germany

Volume 36
Creoles in Education. An appraisal of current programs and projects
Edited by Bettina Migge, Isabelle Léglise and Angela Bartens
Creoles in Education
An appraisal of current programs and projects
Edited by
Bettina Migge
University College Dublin
Isabelle Léglise
CNRS CELIA
Angela Bartens
University of Turku

John Benjamins Publishing Company
Amsterdam / Philadelphia
TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
8
American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence of
Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1984.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Creoles in education : an appraisal of current programs and projects / edited by Bettina
Migge, Isabelle Léglise and Angela Bartens.
p. cm. (Creole Language Library, issn 0920-9026 ; v. 36)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Creoles--Education--Evaluation. 2. Native language and education. 3. Creole dialects.
I. Migge, Bettina. II. Léglise, Isabelle. III. Bartens, Angela, 1970-
LC3609.C74 2010
371.829’96073--dc22 2010006948
isbn 978 90 272 5258 6 (Hb ; alk. paper)
isbn 978 90 272 8820 2 (Eb)
© 2010 – John Benjamins B.V.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any
other means, without written permission from the publisher.
John Benjamins Publishing Co. · P.O. Box 36224 · 1020 me Amsterdam · The Netherlands
John Benjamins North America · P.O. Box 27519 · Philadelphia pa 19118-0519 · usa
Table of contents
Acknowledgements vii
Creoles in education: A discussion of pertinent issues 1
Bettina Migge, Isabelle Léglise & Angela Bartens
Raising critical language awareness in Hawai‘i at Da Pidgin Coup 31
Christina Higgins
Chabacano for everyone? Chabacano language projects in Cavite City
in comparison with other Chabacano communities 55
Eeva Sippola
The Teaching of Creole in Guadeloupe 81
Mirna Bolus
Integrating local languages and cultures into the education system
of French Guiana: A discussion of current programs and initiatives 107
Bettina Migge & Isabelle Léglise
Kriol in Caribbean Nicaragua schools 133
Arja Koskinen
Swimming against the tide: Jamaican Creole in education 167
Karen Carpenter & Hubert Devonish
Introducing French Creole as a language of instruction
in education in St. Lucia 183
Hazel Simmons-McDonald
Bilingual education among the Karipúna and Galibi-Marwono:
Prospects and poss ibilities for language preservation 211
Jo-Anne S. Ferreira
Language and education in Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao 237
Marta Dijkhoff & Joyce Pereira
Cape Verdean in education: A linguistic and human right 273
Marlyse Baptista, Inês Brito & Saídu Bangura
vi Creoles in Education
Trilingual education: On the Islands of San Andres, Providence,
and Santa Catalina 297
Ronald C. Morren
Bibliography 323
Biographical sketches of contributors 351
Index 355
Acknowledgements
This book project has been long in the making. For two of the authors (Léglise, Migge),
this project represents a natural development of our involvement in educational issues
in French Guiana that arose due to our sociolinguistic research in this French overseas
region. We felt that the most efficient way to address the problems that have arisen
within the local projects was to compare them to other projects that deal with similar
problems. However, when we looked around, we found that few descriptions of cur-
rent approaches existed. We therefore decided to begin to fill this gap by encouraging
people to write about existing projets. As far as the third author (Bartens) is con-
cerned, the driving force was her participant observation and involvement in educa-
tional issues on San Andrés, Colombia, over the past ten years and, on the Nicaraguan
Atlantic Coast, for approximately five years.
Without the generous help of many people, we would not have been able to com-
plete this project. We particularly wish to thank the authors of the papers that appear
in this volume for their collaboration. We also want to gratefully acknowledge the
various kinds of support that we received from the following people: Sophie Alby,
Nick Faraclas, Antonella Tassinari, Michael Forman, Ronald Kephart, Michel Launey,
Odile Lescure, Silvia Macedo, Xoán Paulo Rodríguez Yáñez, Laurent Puren, Anand
Rumajogee, Jeff Siegel, and many others.
We are particularly endepted to Duna Troiani who took on the honorous task of
formating the book, Linda Gardiner for her translation of one of the articles and Owen
McCarney for checking language-related issues in several of the articles.
Last, but not least, we also wish to gratefully acknowledge the generous financial
support that we received from ÉRTé (Recherche Appliquée en Formation Education
en Contexte Guyanais (2006–2009)) and the project 1111544 entitled Right to language
and mother tongue education in Nicaragua and Guatemala: Linguistic research as a
means of strenghten ing intercultural bilingual education in Nicaragua and Guatemala
funded by the Finnish Academy of Sciences (2006–2009).

Creoles in education
A discussion of pertinent issues
Bettina Migge, Isabelle Léglise & Angela Bartens
University College Dublin/CNRS-CELIA/University Turku
This paper reviews and critically assesses issues that pertain to the
implementation of Creole languages in education. We review historical, social
and political issues that have hindered the introduction of most of these contact
languages in the educational domain as well as the factors that have spurred the
integration of some of them into education. Based on the available literature,
the paper also provides an overview of current projects around the world. We
critically assess the main characteristics of past and current programs and
projects that seek to implement Creoles in education and propose a tentative
roadmap for setting up viable educational projects.
Keywords: Creoles and education; educational projects
1.  Introduction
The last three decades have seen a steady increase in the use of Pidgin and Creole
(P/C) languages in public life.1 In many P/C-speaking communities, P/C are now
widely used in health education, vocational training, political campaigning and in
the media (Migge & Léglise 2007: 314). These developments demonstrate – if it has

1.  We use the terms Pidgin and Creole (P/C) here without prejudice. Linguists refer to some
of the languages that arose due to colonial expansion and/or contact with European languages
as Pidgins and to others as Creoles depending on their usage patterns. Pidgins are generally
second languages while Creoles are defined as mother tongues. These distinctions have come
to be blurred over time due to social changes and more often than not, it is difficult to distin-
guish between them on linguistic grounds. The speakers of these languages often use these
technical terms in different ways, referring to their mother tongue as Pidgin, for instance, or
not using these terms at all.
 Bettina Migge, Isabelle Léglise & Angela Bartens
to be demonstrated at all2 – that P/Cs are viable means of communication and are
well able to express as wide a range of issues as the European languages with which
they coexist.3
Despite on-going social change in most Creole communities, formal school instruc-
tion in Creole-speaking communities has seen comparatively little change. While stu-
dents are mostly no longer actively discouraged or punished for using their native P/C,
their use is generally also not officially encouraged. Few P/Cs are officially recog-
nized as viable means of instruction. They are mostly informally tolerated to varying
degrees as a transitional measure to facilitate acquisition of the official language(s)
and (European) language(s) of education. In addition to their use as auxiliary media,
P/Cs also tend to be restricted to the oral domain. This creates a vicious circle where
no orthography development and other language engineering takes place as a result
of the presumed unsuitability of the P/Cs to serve as a means of writing. This in turn,
bolsters teachers’ and politicians’ claims with regard to the very claim of inadequacy.
The virtual exclusion of P/Cs from formal instruction is at odds with the findings of
most educational research that suggest that the use of mother tongues as languages of
instruction and for initial literacy contributes significantly towards reducing school
dropout rates and educational underachievement (Cummings 2009).
The situation is not entirely bleak, though. In a number, if not all, Creole com-
munities, activists have not ceased to bring up the issue in local or national debates.
In some communities, such efforts have led to the launching of mostly experimental
projects (Jamaica, French Guiana, San Andrés). In a few communities (Nicaragua, the
Dutch Antilles), more far-reaching educational changes are under way. In yet other
situations, social changes are being implemented through public awareness campaigns
(Hawai‘i), awareness programs for teachers (French Guiana) and the integration of
subjects that focus on local (Creole) language and culture (cf. France’s overseas depart-
ments). All of these activities help to pave the way towards the publicly accepted and
officially sanctioned use of Creole languages in education.
.  After all, on ling uistic terms, no language is more appropriate than another to serve as a
means of communication or instruction. The debates concerning the possibility for a language
to be used in school, for example, are always based on political and ideological arguments:
“A creole is inferior to its corresponding standard language only in social status.” (Decamp
1971: 16).
.  We would like to observe, however, that there are authors who consider the essential cri-
terion for distinguishing Creoles from Pidgins not to be nativization but the ability to serve
all the communicative functions of a community (cf., e.g. Bartens 1996: 9, 137). As a result of
adopting this point of view, varieties previously called “extended Pidgins” have to be considered
Creole languages.