The value of home language education as a means to resolving the issues, .

 

The value of home language education as a means to resolving the issues,

1. Enhances learning and comprehension during early school years.

Most children start school with Creolese or an Indigenous language. With instruction in standard English only, students have difficulty understanding what is being taught. Teaching in their home language helps them understand and retain information better. – Proficiency in the first language aids second language acquisition (Cummins, 2000).

Distance learners, where Wapishana or Patamona are spoken, learn better if they are taught in both those languages and English.

2. Cultivates More Powerful Literacy Skills from the Start

Starting literacy in a familiar language helps children to establish phonemic awareness and comprehension, which can then transfer to English reading and writing. Mother-tongue literacy facilitates simpler and more effective second-language reading acquisition (UNESCO,2008)

Using Creolese when speaking during phonics or reading books will help to enable children to read and connect with texts before moving on to English.

3. Fosters Equity and Lessens Language-Based Marginalization

African and Indigenous children can be humiliated when their home language is seen as "broken" or erroneous. Seeing it reflected in the classroom validates their identity and reinforces confidence. Its exclusion from school results in marginalization and school failure (Ball,2011).

Embracing Creolese as a real part of oral teaching saves the students from being penalized for how they naturally speak.

4. Enhances the Home-School Connection

Parents in rural and Indigenous communities might feel left out from their child's schooling if everything is in English. Teaching in the home language helps families get more involved. Using the home language helps parents support their children and improves communication between schools and families (Hornberger, 2005).

When Creole or Indigenous languages are used in schools in materials or meetings, parents feel more involved and are able to help with reading and homework.

 

5. Helps Improve Academic Performance Over Time

Students who start school in their own language do better in the long term in all subjects, including Math and English, since they don't have the additional challenge of a language barrier while learning new concepts. Bilingual education is more effective than English-only programs (Thomas & Collier, 2002).

Distance learners who learn how to read in their own language tend to be more successful at reading than those classmates who are just beginning in English.

6. Preserves Cultural Identity in a Multicultural Nation

Guyana is home to a heterogeneous mix of Africans, Indians, Indigenous, Portuguese, Chinese, and European. Respecting and using the local languages helps to consolidate the country and honor the heritage of each individual. Language education must help maintain minority languages as a right (Skutnabb-Kangas, 2000).

Encouraging students to recite proverbs, songs, or stories in their own languages (e.g., Creolese or Wapishana) during speaking lessons makes them proud and appreciative of cultures.

 

7. Makes the transition to Standard English much easier

Such learners who gain literacy and oral proficiency in their native language are better positioned and confident when exposed to standard English. This reduces language anxiety and dropouts. Multilingual education strengthens home as well as official language proficiency in the long run. (Heugh,2011) Gradual changeover from Creolese or Patamona to standard English in reading and writing activities can make learning easier.'

References 

Cummins, J. (2000). Language, power and pedagogy: Bilingual children in the crossfire. Multilingual Matters.

 

UNESCO. (2008). Improving the quality of mother tongue-based literacy and learning: Case studies from Asia, Africa and South America. UNESCO Bangkok.

https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000158281

Ball, J. (2011). Enhancing learning of children from diverse language backgrounds: Mother tongue-based bilingual or multilingual education in the early years. UNESCO.

https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000212270

Hornberger, N. H. (2005). Opening and filling up implementational and ideological spaces in heritage language education. The Modern Language Journal, 89(4), 605–609

. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4781.2005.00331.x

Thomas, W. P., & Collier, V. P. (2002). A national study of school effectiveness for language minority students’ long-term academic achievement. Center for Research on Education, Diversity & Excellence.

Skutnabb-Kangas, T. (2000). Linguistic genocide in education – or worldwide diversity and human rights? Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Heugh, K. (2011). Theory and practice – Language education models in Africa: Research, design, decision-making, and outcomes. In A. Ouane & C. Glanz (Eds.), Optimising learning, education and publishing in Africa: The language factor (pp. 105–156).