Teaching Standard to Creole and CIV Speakers: Policy Issues and Program Models

Historically, education systems and education policy in the Caribbean were patterned on those of the countries that colonized the various territories in the region. In the Anglophone territories, English was the language of instruction, and the approaches used to teach were those normally used for teaching native speakers of English regardless of whether a high percentage of learners were Creole or CIV speakers. The situations in the Francophone territories such as Haiti, Martinique, and Guadeloupe were similar. In the case of the latter two overseas departments of France, legislation was passed to allow the use of CIV in the classroom for specified purposes, but the number of programs incorporating the vernacular was negligible and could not be sustained. Included among the reasons given for the lack of success of these programs were lack of parental enthusiasm and children dropping out (Carrington, 1997). Perhaps the overriding factor in these territories was political; while it may have been fashionable to agitate against the establishment for recognition of the vernacular, as long as these islands remained departments of France, French as the official language would continue to be perceived as the language of success and upward mobility.

In the case of Haiti, the majority of the populace speaks French Creole and a small number (5%) are considered to be balanced bilinguals (Valdman, 1988, p. 67). Among reasons given for the lack of success of the reform initiative to incorporate Creole in instructional programs in schools were, first, that “the privileged classes do not wish to change the order of the society. They prefer to maintain the language filter that restricts entry to their class and access to the control systems of the society” (Carrington, 1997, p. 86), and, second, it would be impossible to achieve bilingualism in a society that is over 90% monolingual in Creole. As DeJean put it “For the economically weakest country in the Americas, already burdened with a rate of illiteracy that is one of the highest in the world, to undertake the project of creating from the whole cloth a bilingual society out of a population that is massively monolingual would be foolish because it can't be achieved” (1993, p. 78). DeJean went on to observe that “Scorn and disdain for Creole [and the] conviction of the inferior and inadequate character of the popular speech would be, in the whole of the population, the basis of a popular resistance to the establishment of the experimental classes and the reform programs” (1993, p. 79). Although in Haiti, as in the other territories in the Caribbean, there has been agitation for the use of Creole and CIV in education as a vehicle for speakers of these varieties to acquire literacy, the point is that without political will and social motivation such reform programs will be difficult to implement with success. As Carrington has pointed out “Neither the political directorate nor the masses who might be empowered by vernacular literacy appear to recognize the point of it” (1997, p. 86).

Calls for the use of Creole and CIV in education have come mainly from linguists, some of whom have delineated conditions to guide policymaking for introducing vernacular literacy in certain contexts while being careful to point out that the business of policymaking was the responsibility of the state (e.g., Craig, 1980; Devonish, 1986a/b). One of the earliest suggestions was made by Midgett who proposed, in the case of St. Lucia, that Patois (i.e., French Creole) be used “interchangeably with less formal more colloquial English” as a means of establishing English “in the minds of students as a functional equivalent of Patois” (1970, p. 167). Carrington (1976) presented six principles that described conditions considered favorable for the use of Creole as a language of instruction. Roberts suggested that an “integrative approach” which allows for the use of Creole in an “integrative, appropriate way in the school system” be used. Such an approach, in his view, would “give confidence to pupils who, as they (got) older, (would) feel secure enough to use the full range of their linguistic competence to full effect in their speech and writing” (1993, pp. 12–14). Devonish referred to two policy papers⁴

Craig (1980) described a typology of educational models that presented the linguistic, socioeconomic, and cultural factors that should be considered in determining which model would be best in a given context. These were as follows: (1) school monolingualism in the dominant language, which ignores the home language of the child; (2) transitional bilingualism, which allows use of the child's home language only to the extent that the child can learn enough of the school language to use it for academic purposes in school; (3) monoliterate bilingualism, which develops literacy in the language that is dominant in the community but permits development of both languages for oral–aural skills; (4) partial bilingualism, which develops literacy and oral–aural fluency in the child's home language only for “certain types of subject matter that have to do with the immediate society and culture” (1980, p. 248); (5) full bilingualism, which allows development of all skills in both languages in all domains; and (6) monolingualism in the home language in which the objective is to develop literacy in the home language of the child.

The model most widely implemented in the Anglophone territories of the Caribbean was school monolingualism, which promoted literacy in the official language English. In other territories such as the Netherlands Antilles and Haiti, a bilingual model, which promoted the use of Papiamentu and Haitian French Creole respectively, in grades 1 through 6, was implemented for some time. Based on general reports (e.g., DeJean, 1993; Valdman, 1988) on the Haitian situation, it is possible to infer that the success of the vernacular programs has been below expectations, while research reports on the situation in the Netherlands Antilles are rare. Siegel reported on research done on three types of instructional programs, namely, instrumental, accommodation and awareness that incorporate a Creole or CIV. He explained that, in instrumental programs, the “stigmatized variety”⁵

Bryan and Burnette reported that in Dominica teachers are using Kwéyòl (French Creole) “to aid understanding among children in the primary and secondary sector” (2003, p. 151) which suggests that an accommodation program may be in use in that territory. Winer reported an increased acceptance of Trinidadian Creole (TC) in schools in Trinidad and Tobago. She observed: “Although few would advocate the use of TC as the primary educational medium, even in primary education, there is a widely recognized need, from teachers and community, for its use in education as complementary, additive, and transitional to standard English” (1990, p. 245). The increased acceptance to which Winer refers is also the experience in most other Anglophone territories in which the Caribbean Secondary Examination Certificate, administered by the Caribbean Examination Council (CXC), is taken by students at the end of secondary school. The examination allows for the use of Creole in creative writing in presenting the dialogue of characters, for example, in situations where use of the Creole variety would be natural and realistic. However, for all other purposes, the examination does stress that responses be written in standard English.

In St. Lucia, the official policy is that English should be used as the language of instruction, but teachers, especially in the rural areas, sometimes use Kwéyòl to new students who are native speakers of that variety to facilitate their understanding of classroom procedures. That many Creole and CIV native speakers have not fared as well as their English-speaking counterparts in examinations like the Common Entrance⁷

The children of immigrants to the United Kingdom, Canada, and North America, and students who migrated to these countries, have experienced difficulties learning English, which has led to consultations among linguists and educators regarding the approaches that should be used to facilitate their learning of the standard language. An example would be the International Creole Workshops organized by Florida International University, which sought the input of linguists and educators in the formulation of approaches for instructing French Creole speakers, primarily from Haiti, who had migrated to the United States. Siegel referred to another consultation organized in Toronto to consider “educational inequities faced by the large number of Caribbean immigrants living in Ontario, Canada” (1999b, p. 512). He reported that out of that consultation a committee was formed to produce a resource book for teachers of Caribbean students. Winer, writing about Caribbean immigrants in North America, suggested that “any approach to the teaching of students whose first language is English Creole, recognized or not, must include knowledge about and acceptance of the language and its culture, contrasted specifically with English language and culture varieties” (1993, p. 195). Kephart, considering the fact that many children on Carriacou speak a variety different from metropolitan English, suggested that learning to read Carriacou Creole English (CCE) might “assist” their learning of metropolitan English (2003, p. 238).

An interesting development in the United Kingdom is reflected in the efforts of Morris and Nwenmely to teach Kwéyòl to St. Lucian and Dominican immigrants and their children as a means of developing their literacy skills. The Kwéyòl project emerged as an offshoot of the national literacy campaign launched in the United Kingdom in 1975. The aim of that campaign was to teach English-speaking people who had difficulty reading and writing. Morris and Nwenmely (1993) explained that the organizers were concerned that they were unable to meet the needs of students from the Eastern Caribbean. The Kwéyòl project was launched to help them address those needs:

In this context, instruction in Kwéyòl was seen as a means of preserving the home language and culture of Eastern Caribbean migrants to Britain. Morris and Nwenmely reported: “A great many people see the advantages of being able to read and write the mother tongue as a way of affirming cultural pride, roots and increasing self-worth and confidence” (1993, p. 267). In their view, the study of Kwéyòl also rekindled interest in academic study for adults as well as young people.

Other models have focused not exclusively on Creole speakers but on CIV and speakers of a standard variety who interact as a heterogeneous group in a classroom. Such heterogeneous classrooms are the norm in most schools in St. Lucia and Dominica as well as other territories. Simmons-McDonald (1996) outlined the principles for a model that would tailor instruction to the needs of heterogeneous groups comprising Kwéyòl, CIV, and standard English⁸

Some attempts were made in the French West Indian island of Guadeloupe to use French Creole in school to help students learn standard French. Durizot (1996) reported that in 1977 two schools⁹

Prior to the inclusion of Creole in education, student performance in the acquisition of the standard languages was poor. Bollée reproduced a report from the newspaper which read as follows: “Nearly half of the school leavers could not properly write, read or express themselves in French or English after nine years of primary education” (1993, p. 88). Creole was taught in an instrumental program as part of an integrated curriculum in the first four years of primary school (grades P1 to P4). Over the next three years (grades P5 to P7) it was taught as a subject and up to P9 as “the language medium for political education, creative arts, family life education and extracurricular activities” (Bollée, 1993, p. 89). The results emerging from the reforms in the Seychelles indicate that some success was achieved in terms of student performance. Quoting from a contemporary newspaper, Bollée made the following report:

It is clear from the report that there was some resistance to the introduction of Creole as the primary medium of education and that acceptance of it was slow. However, the political will and the valuation of the language in the society appear to have influenced its successful implementation within the education system. Systematic research on student performance has been rare; however, Siegel (1999b) cited two studies, the first done by Ravel and Thomas (1985) and the second by Bickerton (1988) that reported some measure of success in the performance of the students. For example, Siegel highlighted the finding from the Ravel and Thomas study that showed better performance by Creole-educated students in grade 3 in 1984 than that of their predecessors in 1983 who had been instructed in English. Reports such as these, as well as research findings that show positive effects of mother tongue instruction, have encouraged continued interest in the implementation of Creole and CIV as varieties for instruction in the Caribbean and elsewhere. A brief summary of the main findings of this research is presented in the following section.

The Influence of Research

Research on second language learning in certain mainstream contexts has influenced, to some degree, models that advocate the use of creole and CIV in education for the purpose of helping native speakers of these varieties learn a standard variety. Some findings in bilingual, bidialectal contexts have revealed that the acquisition of two or more languages has positive effects on metalinguistic development (Bialystok, 1991). Comparisons of children who had acquired literacy in two languages indicated better performance by these children when they attempted to acquire a third language than by monolingual or bilingual children who had not acquired literacy in their home language (Swain & Lapkin, 1991). Cummins (1991) reviewed studies that showed that “the better developed children's L1 conceptual foundation, the more likely they are to develop similarly high levels of conceptual abilities in their L2” (cited in Cummins, 1994, p. 38). He further reported that the “positive results of programs that continue to promote literacy in L1 throughout elementary school can be attributed to the combined effect of reinforcing students' cultural identity and their conceptual growth” (1994, p. 39). Ovando and Collier made the point that “cognitive and academic development of a student's first language provides especially crucial and academic support for second-language acquisition” (1998, pp. 88–89). They explained further that if cognitive and academic success in L2 is to be assured, both the oral and written aspects of a student's first language system must be “developed to a high cognitive level” through the years of elementary school. Their comment on this particular point is worth noting:

Craig examined test results for students in the Anglophone West Indian territories (excluding the Bahamas) and concluded that “the creole-influenced majority student population of the Caribbean experiences a magnitude of difficulty in acquiring English language and literacy which is at least equivalent to that experienced by the African American Vernacular English (AAVE) student population in the USA” (1999, p. 29). The point of Craig's statement is that, regardless of the students' first language (i.e., AAVE or English Creole or French Creole), or the differences in the relationship between the first language and the respective standard, the learning outcomes and the language learning difficulties experienced by Creole and CIV speakers are startlingly similar. Comparisons of West Indian students and student groups in the United Kingdom also led Craig (1999) to conclude that the performance of CIV speakers in the West Indies is significantly lower than the equivalent age cohorts in the United Kingdom. A key issue is that populations of Creole and CIV speakers experience similar problems when they are in a formal language-learning situation in which they are required to learn a standard variety as a second language. A comparison of selected works shows that this is not a trivial coincidence (e.g., Rickford, 1999; Simmons-McDonald, 2001; Winch & Gingell, 1994).

Ovando and Collier (1998) summarized several other studies that had reported cognitive benefits experienced by learners who acquire two languages in early childhood. One such benefit is that the subsequent acquisition of a third language is much easier. Others included “cognitive advantages over monolinguals on measures of cognitive flexibility, linguistic and metalingusitic abilities, concept formation, divergent thinking, and creativity” (Ovando & Collier, 1998, p. 256). Research also showed that literacy skills learned in a first language transfer to a second language (e.g., Cummins, 1993). The evidence provided by these studies also dismissed concerns that learners' first language would interfere with the learning of a second. Winch and Gingell compared the writing of Creole and CIV speakers in primary schools in St. Lucia with that of students in the United Kingdom who had had no Creole influence. They attributed most of the errors to “a misunderstanding of the relationship between speech and writing” rather than to interference (1994, p. 177). Some of the errors they identified indicated the learners' inability to handle the features of formal English, and they were identical to errors made by native speakers of English attending school in the United Kingdom. The error types they listed fell into the following categories: (1) context dependent, (2) topicalization, (3) genre difficulties, (4) repetition, and (5) errors due to ambitious constructions (p. 178).

Other research done with creole and CIV groups also provided evidence that the first language of the learner could help and not hinder the learner in the acquisition of a second language. Siegel (1997) reported on an evaluation undertaken in 1989 of a pre-school program in Papua New Guinea to teach initial literacy using Tok Pisin. He examined the term test results of “ex prep” students who had gone through the prep-school program and those who had not gone through the program. He also used interviews and questionnaires, the results of which showed that community schoolteachers had reported that there were no “special problems of interference” and that the influence of the home language, Tok Pisin, could “only be seen sometimes in spelling and pronunciation” (1997, p. 92). The results of that study also showed that the “ex prep” students learned the second language, English, “more easily” than the “no prep” students, that they did better academically, participated more in class, and had a lower dropout rate. Additional, and perhaps the most important, finding was that the students who had been involved in the prep-school program (the ex-prep) “scored significantly higher, not lower, in term tests than those who had not been involved … the higher achievements were in English, as well as in Maths and General Subjects” (p. 94). Siegel concluded that preliminary formal instruction in a pidgin language was better than none at all and that it was not a hindrance to students' later academic achievement. In the same article, Siegel cited a prior study (Murtagh, 1982) conducted with children whose mother tongue was Kriol and who were learning English as a second language. The students in a bilingual program, using Kriol and English, had “greater Englishlanguage proficiency” than the Kriol-speaking students who were in a monolingual English program (1997, p. 98).

In another paper, Siegel (1999a) sought to answer the question of whether or not “there is evidence for the assumption that working with a stigmatized variety in the classroom is detrimental to the acquisition of the standard. He examined available evidence from instrumental, accommodation, and awareness programs and concluded that the studies demonstrated “various positive results of making use of the students' own varieties of language in education (such as) greater participation rates, higher scores on tests measuring reading and writing skills in standard English, and increases in overall academic achievement”(1999a, p. 710). In summary, research done in both mainstream second language-learning situations in which the learners' native language may have been a standard variety and in other situations in which learners' native language was either a Creole or a CIV has provided evidence showing that nurturing and developing a child's first language and teaching literacy in it first did not hamper the learning of a second (standard) language, but was beneficial to the learner in many ways.

Recent Programs, Approaches, and Research

In Caribbean territories with English-lexicon vernaculars, CIV speakers have generally been taught as though English were their native language, and all that was required was for their errors to be corrected. This “correction” approach was widely used and still is today by less experienced teachers in several schools. This approach simply meant that teachers would correct vernacular utterances (or sentences) as being wrong and would reinforce the English equivalent through repetition. Researchers have pointed out that this approach only served to give learners the impression that their language was inferior and that it failed to move learners beyond the vernacular. In the case of St. Lucian speakers of French Creole, Simmons-McDonald (1998) showed that Kwéyòl-speaking children learning English in school first acquired an English-lexicon vernacular, then slowed down in their learning of standard English because the vernacular was widely spoken in their communities and met their communicative needs adequately. They seemed to see no point in acquiring the standard when they could get by with using St. Lucia English-lexicon vernacular (SLEV). She pointed out that approaches that identified the vernacular structures as errors in need of eradication would not be successful, and that the standard had to be considered not as an extension of SLEV, but as a third alternative lect, the acquisition of which would need to be facilitated through the implementation of “a carefully thought-out program of instruction.”

The early systematic approaches to teaching a standard variety to Creole and CIV speakers in the Caribbean are those that were referred to earlier in this discussion, namely, the materials and teachers' guides that were produced by the Language Materials Workshop in Jamaica, the UWI/USAID Primary Education Project, which, we are told, had a “specially designed Language Arts component” intended to cater to the needs of Creole-influenced children across the Caribbean (Craig, 1999, p. 33) and the UNESCO Language Arts Project in the Eastern Caribbean that used audiolingual methods to teach English. Now, many of the ideas for teaching Creole and CIV learners are presented in resource manuals for teachers. These vary as regards the inclusion of theory and the scope of coverage of topics.

One resource for Jamaican teachers prepared by Velma Pollard appeared in 1993. The approach advocated in this manual is contrastive. It is organized in four sections that focus on words with similar sounds but different meanings, words that are different but mean the same things, different grammatical structures that convey the same meaning in the two varieties, and idiomatic speech and writing. The text presents teachers with concrete examples on how to teach the differences, including the use of literature selections as stimuli. Teachers are directed to the relevant theory through a list of references in an appendix. The manual is used in Jamaica, but it was not possible to determine whether any systematic research had been done to assess teachers' responses to it or whether it met its objective of helping teachers “help their students move from being able to use only one language JC (Jamaican Creole) to being able to use the two languages … [needed] to operate successfully in the Jamaican situation” (Pollard, 1993, p. v).

Another program developed by Craig (1999) is also designed as a resource for teachers. This program, Teaching English to Speakers of a Related Variety (TESORV), is intended to help teachers teach language and literacy to CIV speakers. It provides a theoretical perspective as well as practical teaching activities and resources. Craig contends that certain prerequisites related to learner needs must be considered before teaching programs are designed. These are: (1) making provision for continuity in the learners' cognitive growth (in the vernacular) and (2) developing language awareness. In TESORV, the teaching and learning experiences that are suggested by the prerequisites require recognition of “the difference between using the vernacular and using English and (keeping) the two separate,” using the “life experiences of learners and the vernacular culture and environment in integration with the culture of the wider world,” and insistence on “clarity of goals and objectives in the use of the vernacular and of English” (Craig, 1999, pp. 44–45). The teaching approach promotes the development of language awareness, direct procedures that focus on “perception/reception … of the form and meaning of new language elements (in English), on internalization or understanding and recomposing what has been perceived/received and creative utilization of what has been internalized” (1999, p. 45).

TESORV uses an eclectic approach that incorporates selected foreign language methods, and use of the vernacular in carefully designed activities that develop the learners' language awareness and literacy abilities within a language experience framework. A major emphasis is on active student participation in language learning. Craig made the following assertion with regard to TESORV:

In some ways, TESORV is not new because it uses approaches and methods in existence for some time. However, in its pulling together of the various methodological strands and in its provision of detailed guidelines for the incorporation of the vernacular, it provides a comprehensive approach to vernacular instruction. The program includes sample activities, procedures to be used, scheme of work and syllabus resources, and a wealth of information about language and differences between vernacular structures and English. In this way, it attempts to fill a gap not usually addressed in most teacher training programs, namely, the linguistic background that is essential to teachers who work in a creole and creole-influenced context.

TESORV is grounded in the findings of research on language acquisition/learning conducted over decades within and outside of the Caribbean region, and it is used by many teachers across the territories. As far as I am aware, its introduction within the Caribbean was not linked to a research program that could provide information on its efficacy in helping creole and CIV speakers learn the standard variety. In fact, precisely because TESORV uses such a range of methods, it would be useful to determine its success as a teaching approach within the context of a well-designed research study. Unfortunately, the research study component of many programs implemented within and outside the Caribbean has been missing and this constitutes a severe lack in the literature on vernacular literacy. This lack has been noted elsewhere in the literature; for example, Siegel observed that “very little research has been done on the use of Creoles and minority dialects in education” (1999b, p. 519). This remains an area of vital importance for applied linguists and educators to address.

Other recent programs, though not excluding contrasts between the Creole/CIV and the standard variety as an activity that can be judiciously employed in the classroom, have not used a contrastive approach as central but have focused instead on the use of literature as a means of developing literacy in the standard variety. These programs vary with regard to their overt use of the vernacular in the classroom. One study by Wilson, Smikle, and Grant (2001) used a literature-based approach to develop early literacy skills in the early primary grades in selected Jamaican schools. The authors did not mention vernacular speakers explicitly in the exposition of the study, but they referred to a Ministry of Education study, which had shown that “more than two-thirds of grade six pupils had scores considered to be below acceptable levels in English language skills” (2001, p. 1). The use of Jamaican Creole (JC) is so widespread in Jamaica that it would be unusual if those students who had low scores did not include a proportion of JC speakers. Similarly, it would be very unlikely that the sample used in this study did not include JC speakers. It is only in one concluding statement that the authors made direct reference to Creole speakers, thus implying that the sample included JC speakers.

Wilson et al. developed and implemented a literature-based program of work and used evidence from emergent literacy studies to justify their choice of this approach. They selected approximately 121 titles from the following categories: informational books, folktales, realistic fiction, nonfiction, traditional literature, and fantasy. Their selections also included multicultural literature. The approach was implemented within the context of a carefully monitored research experiment that sought to answer six questions, including whether the literature-based language approach to reading would affect the learners' reading attitude and reading comprehension. The study was conducted in 14 primary schools with students in grades 1 and 2 and consisted of a sample of 120 in the experimental groups and 109 in the control groups. The researchers used Literature-Based Language Arts Project (LBLAP) assessment instruments to test word recognition, comprehension, reading interest/attitude and orientation to book print. The main approach comprised teachers reading aloud to students and using a set of classroom activities that included story retelling, choral reading, paired reading, and whole class discussion, among others. The data gathering instruments included close observation of lessons and administration of the LBLAP tests. The study found that the experimental groups had higher gain scores than the control groups on all the measures and that the difference was significant. The investigators found that reading attitudes improved with grade level and that the higher attitude scores were found in the experimental group. The researchers concluded that LBLAP “is a means of fostering language acquisition for Creole-speaking children, enabling children who do not come to school speaking English to acquire grammatical patterns of that language” (Wilson et al., 2001, p. 54).

Within the St. Lucian context, Simmons-McDonald (2000) conducted an experiment that explored the effects of an integrated approach in a tripartite model tailored to the needs of children who were native speakers of either St. Lucian French Creole (SLFC/Kwéyòl), a (French) Creole-influenced English-lexicon vernacular (SLEV), or St. Lucian Standard English (SLSE). The model promoted Kwéyòl for its native speakers in initial literacy development, while they acquired English for communicative purposes as well as literacy in English. It also promoted Kwéyòl as a subject for study and for communication purposes by CIV and English speakers for cultural reasons. The principles of the model were summarized as follows:

The experiment implemented a modified version of the French Creole model, using a small group of learners in grades 5 and 6 identified by their teachers as having severe reading problems. The experiment was conducted in six intensive sessions each of one week's duration over three terms, and was modified to allow for 45 minutes of instruction in Kwéyòl and one hour of English in each instructional session. A single subject research design (Neuman & McCormick, 1995) was used in the experiment because it allowed for the subjects to be used as their own controls. Included in the experiment were two boys and a girl, all native speakers of Kwéyòl, drawn from a larger group who had been found to be reading two to four grade levels below their required age. By the end of the experiment, two of the children who had been beginning readers were reading at grade 1 level; the oldest boy, Ado, who had been reading at grade 1 level with an accuracy rate of 85.5% in English at the start of the study was reading grade 3 materials fluently and had a 97% accuracy score in the last recorded session, as shown in Figure 1. Results for Kwéyòl literacy were also very encouraging. All the children could read several of the Kwéyòl folk tales included in the reading selection independently.

Reading accuracy percentages for Kwéyòl (L1) and English (L2) for Ado (from Simmons-McDonald, in press)

The concluding statement pointed to the fact that, although only a scaleddown version of the French Creole model had been implemented, “all the subjects who had been listed as being at risk at the start of the study and who had only limited word recognition abilities at the kindergarten level developed fluency in reading texts at least one grade level higher than their levels of proficiency at the start of the study. In the case of the oldest child, gains in accuracy in both languages exceeded expectations, as this subject was able to read texts at grade 3 level by the end of the experiment” (Simmons-McDonald, in press). It was clear that the integrated and culturally rich literature base advocated by the model fully engaged the learners and encouraged development across language varieties.

Elsewhere, experiments have used literature-based approaches in vernacular literacy programs. One experiment with African American Vernacular English (AAVE) speaking students and other students from different minority groups who were considered to be at risk was reported by Rickford (1999). Rickford proposed two “essential means” for helping schools succeed in the teaching of reading to African American and other minority populations. These were “increased use of culturally congruent literature … the inclusion of more tests in which students can see characers like themselves portrayed,” and modification of the “teaching and testing of reading comprehension … to make it more engaging and challenging” (1999, p. xii). Among other benefits, Rickford reported positive results in the literacy development of the students in her study.

The shift toward other approaches such as those used in the studies discussed in this section is not uncommon. Gerbault reported that such a shift in practice reflected the shift in pedagogical theory “from a focus on teaching to a focus on learning and ‘learner-centredness’ that had implications for a number of theoretical positions regarding the pedagogy of literacy” (1997, p. 147). She pointed out that this pedagogy “borrowed principles from a variety of pedagogical theories,” and that it “also developed its own principles to cope with specific challenges in the practice of teaching vernacular literacy” (1997, p. 144). Some of these principles include the use of approaches that focus more on learners and on their active participation in lessons; on the integration of reading, writing, and numeracy skills; and on teaching initial literacy in the language that the learner can speak. Gerbault noted that these approaches have also been used in adult programs as well.

The selection of articles included in Tabouret-Keller et al. (1997) gave indications of some similar developments in adult programs in global contexts; Siegel (1999b) provided a listing of comparable programs that have been reported on in formal and nonformal education. As noted earlier, Siegel commented on the scant research available and observed that most of the studies done, including some discussed in the foregoing sections, have been done on instrumental programs that used Creole as the medium of instruction. The absence of research data on some programs and approaches as well as scant descriptions of the procedures used in some programs make it difficult to compare the effects of these programs on different groups of Creole and CIV speakers and also make replication of the studies in different contexts impossible. Further, the lack of published evidence showing the benefits of selected pedagogical approaches on speakers of Creoles and CIV makes the task of promoting the inclusion of Creole and CIV in formal education systems more difficult when it is precisely in that context—in which the majority of Creolespeaking children are enrolled—that such programs are likely to have a positive and lifelong impact. Governments in the Caribbean and possibly elsewhere remain skeptical about the efficacy of vernacular literacy or vernacular education programs. It is only by providing evidence about program efficacy based on experiments using different approaches to literacy instruction, describing these approaches carefully, and collecting data on their relative benefits to creole and CIV groups, that informed decisions will be made. Applied linguists have much to contribute to these ongoing efforts.