The following column from the Accra daily Ghanaian Chronicle was seen on AllAfrica.com at http://allafrica.com/stories/200511210803.html . It deals specifically with English levels in Ghana, and not African languages or bilingual education. However, a few things about its mention of the country's maternal languages raise some questions:
1) One sentence - "As we grow up in the environment of our respective mother tongues, we do not take any conscious effort to learn the grammar and vocabulary of the language. We acquire both as we grow." - seems to assume that first-language proficiency requires no study. But in much of the world people acquire their maternal languages as the writer describes, *and* they study it in school. What are the costs to a language today of its young speakers acquiring it only at home, in the community, and on the street, but not in school? 2) The article looks at declining English levels from several viewpoints. One it does not consider is the effect of not studying the first language. Although I do not know the actual language-of-instruction policies in Ghana, I have read that it was the policy to begin instruction in first languages and then increasingly use English, and have heard that the current educational trend there is to de-emphasize Ghanaian languages in schooling in favor of English-only. If accurate, is this shift at all related to the decline in English levels described by the author of the article? Looked at the other way, could better acquisition of English (an L2) be assisted by better educational foundations in the first languages (L1s)? Don Osborn In the Matter of English Ghanaian Chronicle (Accra) http://www.ghanaian-chronicle.com/ COLUMN November 21, 2005 Posted to the web November 21, 2005 I. K. Gyasi IT IS interesting to note that within the space of about one month, a number of highly-placed persons have had to bemoan the poor state of English among students even at the tertiary level. Professor Kwesi Andam, the Vice Chancellor of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi, recently lamented the inability of tertiary students (that includes university students) to read, write and speak good English. The Vice Chancellor was speaking at a gathering at Offinso Training College. At the fifth matriculation ceremony of the Islamic University College in Accra, Alhaji Rahimi Gbadamosi also deplored the poor use of English among the students. He reportedly added, however, that there were some of the students who used the language very well. He said, "I have also had occasion to commend some of them for their high standard of spoken and written English. So all is not lost as such." (Daily Graphic - Wednesday, November 16, 2005). Interestingly, the same issue of the paper reported Mrs. Angelina Baiden-Amissah, Deputy Minister of Education and Sports, as having "bemoaned the falling standards in the use of English language in schools." She was speaking at the 2005 awards ceremony for the Coca-Cola National Essay Writing Competition. What was stressed ago by Barimah "Professor" Azumah Nelson, former Featherweight Boxing Champion was the need for Pupils and students to improve their command of English through constant reading. It should be emphasized that we are not witnessing a new phenomenon. The cry against the poor use of English has been uttered times without number over a long period of time. Long before Professor Andam spoke, Professor Ivan Addae-Mensah, a former Vice Chancellor of the University of Ghana, had also expressed worry over the poor standard of English among his students. My own Vandal mate, Africanus Owusu-Ansah, a sociologist and lawyer now with the Customs, Excise and Preventive Service (CEPS), has not only spent a Life-time teaching English at the teacher training college but has written books on the subject and popularized the language many times in the Daily Graphic. It is just too bad that he now spends so much time chasing tax dodgers and making money for the State that he does not seem to have any more time to enlighten us on the proper use of English. The lamentations of all the people mentioned here should tell him that he still has a duty to perform in the area of the use of English. But I digress. As a former teacher of English, author of an authoritative textbook on the subject (if you will pardon the boast) and one time examiner in the subject for the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) (from 1966 to 1979, with four years as a Team Leader), I can say with some assurance that we have had extremely bright student-users of English and the not-so-bright ones over the years. But it is also true that the slide downwards has continued at an alarming rate. Greatly affected are grammar, expression, spelling, punctuation and syntax. Lack of concord and collocation also constitutes a problem. Let me agree with Alhaji Gbadamosi that all is not Lost because, at least at the university level, the female students tend to do far better, especially with the spoken form of the language. That does not mean that we should be complacent. Again, though the language is Not our mother tongue, we should not adopt the attitude of "it does not matter if we cannot use the Queen's English like a native son or daughter'. Take this favourite of mine taken from he report of the Chief Examiner of English, 1993, which was partly an answer to a question asking the candidate to write an article on 'The Role of the Youth in National Development.' It went like this: "Permit me in you esteem to take place to talk about the ARTICLE for THE ROLE OF YOUD DEVELOPMENT. Befo I cuud outer anything cANcering of role of the yout I would for those who is listeners the rule. It have been said no bady aboov the low so if you breaks you be punish but you they not want to follow the role." The chief Examiner's comment was. "This, incredible as it may sound, is average. Below this level were scripts in which no letter of the alphabet was identifiable." Let me bring a little consolation to the reader by referring to an "illiterate letter" which lily-white British students at a British university in the United Kingdom wrote to the British Government, protesting against the introduction of student loans. If you saw that letter (I once quoted it in one of my articles) you might be forgiven for thinking that we over here are making too much fuss over an alien language. Unfortunately, as I have had occasion to state again and again, we have no immediate alternative but to learn to use English well, that is; write it well, read it well, speak it well and understand it well. Maybe, some day, we will be able to agree to adopt one indigenous language as our official language. What accounts for the rapid deterioration in the standard as complained of by all these well-meaning people? It is undeniable that really good novels, the ones described as the classics, are either no longer obtainable here or are prohibitively expensive. It is also a fact, however, that the will to sit down and read a book for the pleasure of it has faded or is fading. It is far easier to watch television or listen to the radio than to sit still and concentrate on a good book. What constant reading achieves for the reader is mastery of the vocabulary- the expression, the punctuation and the grammar. It is also important for our teachers to make a deliberate effort to give the students an understanding of how the language works. As we grow up in the environment of our respective mother tongues, we do not take any conscious effort to learn the grammar and vocabulary of the language. We acquire both as we grow. With a foreign language, it comes necessary to learn the grammar and the vocabulary as well as the rules governing the use of that language. Here, let me entreat the English departments of our universities to teach their students the so-called normative or prescriptive grammar in addition to the structural grammar, the transformational-generative grammar, the phrase-structure grammar, the tagmemic grammar and all the huhudious grammars (apology to Carl Mutt) they are so fascinated with. Their students who find themselves teaching in secondary schools will not be teaching those grammars. At, especially the basic and second-cycle levels, there should be exercises in individual word spelling, spelling competitions and dictation. That is How some of us, who attended village schools like Adansi Brofoyedru Methodist Primary School, managed to acquire some mastery in the use of the language and Our mother tongue as well. Essay writing competitions are good but they pre-suppose that the competitors have acquired the necessary tools- grammar, vocabulary and punctuation - to be able to enter the competition in the first place. ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Know an art & music fan? Make a donation in their honor this holiday season! http://us.click.yahoo.com/.6dcNC/.VHMAA/Zx0JAA/TpIolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AfricanLanguages/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
