“I used to like writing in Kreol but now I only use English” : an exploratory study of language attitudes and examination performance among primary and secondary school pupils in the Seychelles

Abstract

Due to a colonial legacy, numerous nations have been struggling to find the role of indigenous languages in officialdom. In many such contexts, the ex-colonial language/s (often English) still represent the path to economic success and prestige, while local vernaculars are low in status and confined to less formal domains. In this respect, Creole languages have traditionally been particularly stigmatised. In the following article, we will examine pupils’ (year one to nine) language attitudes towards the three national languages in the Seychelles – the mother tongue Kreol Seselwa, and the two ex-colonial languages English and French – in two schools, and explore how these attitudes compare with the general performance in the national examinations. The results show that pupils in primary school are positive towards Kreol in all four literacy skill domains, and that these positive attitudes are mirrored in the P6 national examinations. In contrast, there is a clear change in attitudes towards writing and reading in Kreol, once pupils enter the secondary level; secondary school pupils do not seem to favour Kreol as a written medium. We are also able to show that the positive attitudes pupils in primary and secondary schools also hold towards English are not reflected in exam results. English together with Mathematics are the two subjects with the lowest national average grades in the P6 examinations. Finally, our results indicate that girls hold more favourable attitudes towards all the key literacy skills in all the languages investigated, and that these attitudes are reflected in the performance in the national examinations; girls outscore boys in all the language subjects and the poor performance of boys, especially in written English, is of concern. We argue that the positive attitudes and results in Kreol in primary school should be built on in order to increase general literacy in all language subjects, and that extending the role of Kreol as an academic subject into secondary levels may help in this pursuit and raise literacy levels as well as the general status of the language. Further the findings have greater implications for language-in-education policies in post-colonial contexts, some of which are discussed below.

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