The nexus between education, learning, and language

Paulin G. Djité · Palmes Académiques

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Multilingual Education and Policy Linguistic and Sociocultural Studies Second Language Learning and Teaching

Abstract

“And I’ll take you home Not just for the weekend We’ll chase the days alive Welcome in the night I want another sign And I’ll keep you warm Not just for this moment We’ll walk a million miles Through the years of our lives Never alone, Cos I’ll take you home” (Leith, 2007)1 Language plays a central role in cognition and learning, and language-in-education policy determines who has access to education. Fifty years after the proclamation of independence in Africa, education is still sought through colonial languages (English, French or Portuguese), and these languages remain the key to acquiring, maintaining and enhancing a higher socio-economic and political standing. Whilst multilingualism is the most prominent feature of speech communities in Africa, the education of the African child is still locked into a monolingual policy of language substitution, a policy that imposes a language of instruction that the majority of learners do not know and that 2 wrongly assumes that all learners possess the same backgrounds and experiences. This paper argues that the time has come for a much needed paradigm shift, in order to put in place new, practical solutions to the wasteful and long-held practice of insisting on a language-in-education policy that has failed to deliver the desired results. Language-in-education policy needs to be better targeted, in order to create a truly learning society, a society in which education is much more responsive to the immediate realities of the learners, as well as to those of a globalising and changing world. Along these lines, the paper discusses emerging opportunities for innovation in education and learning that can better integrate local languages as media of instruction. 1.

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References

1994Foundations of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 2009Human Development Report 2007/2008 Fighting Climate Change: Human Solidarity in a Divided World, UNDP, New York 1993Adult literacy in America : a first look at the results of the National Adult Literacy Survey 2008Fighting Climate Change — Human Solidarity in a Divided World 2002Multilingual language policies and the continua of biliteracy: An ecological approach 2006A First Look at the Literacy of America's Adults in the 21st Century. NCES 2006-470.1989Literacy and Health Status in Developing Countries 1968Nationality-Nationalism and Nation-Nationism.

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