Creole-based Trilingual Education in the Caribbean Archipelago of San Andres, Providence and Santa Catalina

Transcription

1 -based Trilingual Education in the Caribbean Archipelago of San Andres, Providence and Santa Catalina Ronald C. Morren Language Development Department, Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics, Dallas, Texas 75236, USA This article depicts the impetus and drive behind the development of a primary trilingual education curriculum for the Western Caribbean Archipelago of San Andres, Providence and Santa Catalina. Based on outcomes in other multilingual education projects, the article hypothesises positive academic gains in all areas of the curriculum at a cost benefit to the national government. This paper describes the setting and then gives the details of the process of said curriculum enhancement from orthography development through course of study and other resources upgrading to the published materials. Introduction: Historical Background Located approximately 100 miles east of Nicaragua and 500 miles northwest of the Colombian mainland, the islands of San Andres, Providence and Santa Catalina, along with many uninhabited keys, rocks, reefs and banks make up the Caribbean archipelago frequently referred to simply as San Andres and Providence. This archipelago is Colombia s smallest departamento or province with an area of 44 square kilometres and a population of approximately 62,000, roughly half of who are of African descent. During Europe s Thirty Years War ( ), sailors were sent to the Caribbean to attack and thus weaken the Spanish. It was on such a foray that Captain Sussex Cammock discovered Providence and San Andres Islands (Holm, 1982: 18). In Puritan colonists from Bermuda arrived in San Andres; more arrived in 1629 and an additional 90 Puritans arrived directly from England in 1631 (Vollmer, 1997: 31 and Turnage, n.d.: 11) When the arrived a small contingent of Dutch were already present. For the next 160 years the, Dutch and Spanish disputed ownership. During this time slaves from Africa were introduced to till the land and soon outnumbered the white plantation owners. The 1783 Treaty of Versailles granted Spain sovereignty over Central America s Miskito Coast and the archipelago. Spain demanded the evacuation of the from the Miskito Coast. A few went to San Andres where, along with the already existing population, they were allowed to stay on condition that they be loyal subjects of Spain (Holm, 1982: 57, Turnage, n.d.: 14). In 1822 San Andres, Providence and Santa Catalina became part of Colombia after Colombia had obtained independence from Spain (Vollmer, 1997: 52). All slavery was officially abolished in Colombia in At least one San Andres Island slave owner, however, Philip Beekman Livingston, Jr, had already freed his slaves in 1834, apportioning to them some of the land that he owned. In /01/ $20.00/ R.C. Morren JOURNAL OF MULTILINGUAL AND MULTICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT Vol. 22, No. 3,

2 228 Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 1847 this same Livingston founded the First Baptist Church on San Andres. A school was also established. Both the church and the school utilised as the medium of instruction. By the end of the 19th century 95% of the Island population were Baptists,and more than 90% of these were able to read and write in (Vollmer, 1997: 56). For centuries the Islanders have looked to other -lexifier people of the Caribbean and/or to Great Britain and North America for many of their economic, socio-cultural, religious and educational needs. As a result, in spite of political ties to first Spain and now Colombia, and, because of the influence of -speaking plantation owners including the probable exchange of slaves with other -speaking colonies, the preferred language of school and church for the Afro-Caribbean inhabitants of these islands is Standard. The preferred language of oral communication for other domains is Western Caribbean (Grimes, 2000), referred to by native speakers as Islander, Caribbean, or simply. In 1953 the Colombian government declared San Andres Island a duty free port. This not only introduced an economic change, but a demographic change as well. San Andres free port status attracted many mainland Hispanic Colombians to the island. Their superior knowledge of the Spanish language, Colombian laws, and business savvy gave them an advantage such that today the Hispanics own the vast majority of free port and tourism businesses. The increased Hispanic presence has also precipitated a change in language use on San Andres Island. Whereas, prior to the 1953 granting of free port status, Islander and Standard were the primary languages of all domains except when dealing with Spanish-speaking government officials, today Spanish is used in almost all mass media and in business transactions. In addition, whereas was the Island s de facto official language of education and church, today Spanish, as in mainland Colombia, is the medium of instruction in most schools as well as in many of the Island s churches. This has caused the Islander -speaking population to feel left out, and not a little resentful, that the majority of businesses are owned by mainland Colombians and that the Spanish language and culture are dominating their island. Providence and Santa Catalina Islands, separated from San Andres by about 50 miles of ocean but separated from each other only by a shallow channel of water, were not granted free port status. Consequently, these two islands have not experienced a great influx of Colombians from the mainland. They are still primarily inhabited by Islander -speaking Afro-Caribbeans and the population density is much less. The issue of language and culture vitality is not as intense. In the Baptist churches on San Andres, where the majority of adherents are Islander speakers, is still the preferred language. Where these Baptist churches also have a school, Spanish and are both used as media of instruction. Islander is still the language of choice for most native islanders when at home or interacting with Islander -speaking friends. As they say, It is the sweetest language to speak in.

3 -based Trilingual Education 229 Trilingual Education Initiative on San Andres Today there are basically two kinds of leaders in the Archipelago: (1) elected or appointed government officials (political leaders), and (2) religious leaders. The elected and appointed leaders serve both the Spanish-speaking and the Islander -speaking communities. Much of their authority comes from the Colombian capitol, Bogota. The religious leaders (pastors, priests, and elders) obtain their authority from their position and maintain that position with the consent of the Islander -speaking people. The historical strength of the Baptist churches has undoubtedly contributed to the authoritative leadership of Baptist pastors in the archipelago. Baptist pastors are not only looked to for leadership regarding religious-related issues, but also in educational and political matters effecting native islanders as well. Spanish-speaking pastors and priests primarily exercise their leadership in matters related to the church. The islands political and religious leaders do not always agree. The Islander -speaking religious leaders view Islander as a legitimate language that gives native islanders their unique cultural identity with accompanying values. For them, Spanish is seen as an imposition and the cause of erosion of their language, culture, moral values and identity and the reason their most promising young people are neither learning Standard well nor maintaining their own mother tongue. In short, they are concerned about the vitality of their language and culture. Most political leaders, however, view Islander as a substandard form of Standard and believe that since they belong to a Spanish speaking country, the islands educational institutions should employ Spanish as the medium of instruction. If a second language is to be used it should be Standard not Islander. Their view of Islander is that it is broken or bastardised and not a legitimate language at all. Mother-tongue education is a right granted by the Colombian constitution. The religious leaders want to exercise that right by implementing a mother-tongue curriculum in the public schools that are housed in their local Baptist churches. (The separation of church and state in Colombia is much less distinct than it is in the United States.) With mother-tongue education in mind, in 1997 the Christian University of San Andres, Providence and Santa Catalina invited the author and his wife, Diane (who has extensive experience in teaching as a second language and bilingual education at the primary school level), to San Andres for a week to discuss the foundation, essentials, and pros and cons of beginning education in the mother tongue. Several meetings were held with Island leaders (both political and religious), educators and representatives of the media. Those talks led to proposing trilingual education for Islander -speaking children using Islander, and Spanish as languages of instruction. Three public schools, all housed in Baptist Church facilities, were chosen as experimental schools to develop and implement a trilingual education curriculum.

4 230 Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development The Hypotheses for the San Andres, Providence and Santa Catalina Trilingual Education Project The hypotheses of the Trilingual Education Project for San Andres, Providence and Santa Catalina Islands manifests agreement with the statement made in 1951 by UNESCO (1953: 11): It is axiomatic that the best medium for teaching a child is his mother tongue Educationally, he learns more quickly through it than through an unfamiliar linguistic medium. Furthermore, UNESCO (47 8) said: it is important that every effort should be made to provide education in the mother tongue. In particular, pupils should begin their schooling through the medium of the mother tongue, because they understand it best and because to begin their school life in the mother tongue will make the break between home and school as small as possible. Since the above statements were made, much research has gone into mother tongue and bilingual education, (e.g. Baker, 1996; Cummins, 1981; Dutcher, 1982, 1996; Lambert & Tucker, 1972 Larson and Davis, 1981; Modiano, 1973; Morren, 1988; Thomas & Collier, 1997). This research not only supports UNESCO s position, but demonstrates conclusively that minority children who begin their education in the mother tongue do better in all subjects and are not hindered in their acquisition of a second language when compared to their peers who received all of their education in the second language. Therefore, it is hypothesised that native San Andres, Providence and Santa Catalina Island children (i.e. children who learn to speak Islander at home as their first language) who, during their pre-first and first grade of school are taught in their mother tongue and are given mother tongue support in subsequent grades, will do better academically in the content areas such as mathematics, social science and natural science. Further, upon completion of primary school these children will be able to speak a second and third language (i.e. and Spanish) as well as or better than other native Island children who did not receive instruction in the mother tongue. It is also hypothesised that by the end of third grade, students who have been in the Trilingual Education Project for all of their schooling to this point will do significantly better on locally administered, annual achievement tests than the Islander -speaking students who did not participate in the project. (Bilingual education research results show that the longer a student is educated in his/her mother tongue the better the results will be but that the advantages of mother tongue education do not begin to show up until about third grade. (See Morren, 1988; Murtagh, 1982; Ravel & Thomas, 1985 as quoted in Siegel, 1999 and Thomas & Collier, 1997.) Supporting the above premise, it is important to note that San Andres Island pre-primary school teachers who implemented the first trial edition of an Islander ABC Book reported that the children exhibited more pleasure and eagerness for the stories than for stories in either or Spanish. The teachers concluded that it was because the children understood the

5 -based Trilingual Education 231 stories and that they were culturally relevant to the children s environment. This illustrates that using linguistically and culturally appropriate stories to teach Islander -speaking children to read may present greater motivation and interest among said students. Rationale for Trilingual Education According to Siegel (1999: ) the Barunga bilingual education project of South Australia lists the following rationale for supporting bilingual education. This same rationale is applicable to the trilingual education project for San Andres, Providence, and Santa Catalina Islands. (The official name of the language spoken in Australia is Kriol.) It respects Kriol as the children s mother tongue. The use of Kriol as a language of instruction in school supports their pride in themselves and their language. It supports families in teaching the children their own language and culture. It helps children understand things better when they can talk about them first in Kriol, in most cases their mother tongue. It helps children understand the differences between Kriol and. This helps them learn more about and how to use it properly. It is a well-accepted fact that children s cognitive skills are less developed if their educational environment does not allow nor encourage them to think or express themselves in their own language (Thomas & Collier 1997; Siegel, 1999). A -speaking child, therefore, should not have to learn two other languages (e.g. Spanish and ) to the detriment of his/her own mother tongue as has been the case on San Andres Island for the past 40 years. The benefit of developing the mother tongue as a legitimate language of instruction and then using the mother tongue as a medium of instruction will be that the student can start with what s/he already knows (his/her mother tongue) and proceed to the unknown. The end result should be that the learner will not fall behind his age group in learning to read or any other subject matter appropriate to that age group. During this time the student will be exposed to the 2nd and 3rd languages as a subject before being expected to master content material in that language. By the end of sixth grade the student should be proficient in the three languages of the Islands Islander (their mother tongue), and Spanish. Languages in Education Children who speak any language as their first language are often disadvantaged in their primary education because their first language is a language that teachers traditionally do not use in the domain of the classroom. Children are even sometimes punished for using it at school. Siegel (1999: 509) says it is rare to find a creole or minority dialect being used officially in formal education. Siegel suggests that there are two reasons for this: (1) the difficulty in selecting a particular variety of the local to be used in education, and (2) the perception of parents toward their language. Many do not see their as a legitimate language and view its use in education as a waste of time.

6 232 Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development Siegel (1999: ) gives four obstacles -speaking students face regarding the use of languages in education. I paraphrase them as follows: (1) When teachers have a negative attitude toward the student s language they often have a negative attitude toward the student. This prejudice causes the teacher to have lower expectations of such students which leads to lower student performance. The students become cognisant of the teacher s expectations by the manner in which they are treated. This is sometimes referred to as the Pygmalion effect (Rosenthal & Jacobson, 1968). (2) When students have a negative attitude toward their language, thinking it is not a legitimate language but rather a broken or bastardised form of the lexifier language, this poor self-image is often reflected in low academic achievement. (3) When students are not allowed to use their mother tongue to express themselves, their cognitive and creative development is repressed. They may then be perceived as slow learners. (4) When students are required to learn two new things at once (e.g. learn to read and, simultaneously, learn the second language so that what is being read makes sense) they sometimes become discouraged and/or frustrated. An age-old pedagogical rule says that learning should go from the known to the unknown. It is easier to learn to read in one s first language the known language, the one the student understands best. Subsequently, after a second language is learned, one s first language reading skills can be transitioned to the second language. As Gudschinsky (1973: 6) says: You learn how to read only once. (A person may need to learn new sound-symbol relationships, but the principle that reading is getting meaning from print is learned only once.) The same pedagogical rule is true for other subject content as well. Trilingual Education Curriculum Development in the Province of San Andres, Providence and Santa Catalina Islands, Colombia The implementation of this new trilingual education experimental curriculum is one grade per year. At the time of this writing the Project is in its second year. Therefore, this paper will emphasise the curriculum development process that was used for planning and designing the pedagogical materials for pre- first and first grades. Although the impetus for this project has come from the Island of San Andres, the Islander -speakers of Providence and Santa Catalina are also interested in the results. If the expected favourable outcomes result, schools on Providence and Santa Catalina are likely to also implement the trilingual education curriculum. In June 1998 the author and his wife were again invited by The Christian University of San Andres, Providence and Santa Catalina to conduct a month-long workshop for local Islander -speaking school-teachers. The first week began by sharing with them the theory, philosophy and purpose of beginning instruction in the mother tongue. The need for agreement on standardising a written form of the language was also discussed. There have been a few creative Islanders who have written folktales, poems, and narratives in the

7 -based Trilingual Education 233 language. Up to this time, however, the few speakers who had attempted to write in their own language followed their own ideas about how it should be written, even spelling the same word differently within one paragraph. Local leaders subsequently selected an orthography committee from among those interested in the proposed trilingual education project. The orthography committee was made up of a university official, two school principals, a Baptist pastor, a Catholic priest, a church elder, and a recognised author who has published in Spanish, and Islander. The committee s mandate was to make decisions about standardising the written form of Islander. The development of a standard way of writing Islander began with the orthography committee looking at the orthography work previously done in Belize by Decker (1996). Belizean is very similar to Islander. The Belizean orthography committee had looked at alternative approaches to systematically writing their language and decided that written Belizean should follow what is called a Rule-based Phonemic Model. The key idea of the Rule-Based Phonemic Model is to maintain the more common spelling conventions of. This is done by choosing the most representative ways that sounds are symbolised in. Rather than having a one symbol-one sound system, we accept that there will have to be more than one way to represent some sounds, specifically vowel sounds. Consonants maintain the one symbol-one sound correspondence. In principle, the two or three different ways of spelling each vowel are chosen from the way those sounds are written most commonly in (Decker, 1996: 357). The Islander orthography committee, in conjunction with school-teachers from the three experimental schools of San Andres Island, initially came to an overwhelming consensus regarding their orthography they did not want their language to look like Spanish, preferring it to look more like. Therefore, at first, a phonemic model was rejected in favour of patterning their orthography after the Rule-based Phonemic Model being used in Belize. After trying the Rule-Based Phonemic Model for a year, however, Islander -speaking teachers and the orthography committee decided that a more phonemic orthography would be better. They felt that the Rule-based Phonemic Model had too many rules and that, for pedagogical reasons, a more strictly phonemic orthography would be easier for children to learn to read. The 1998 month-long workshop included an Introduction to Multilingual Education, an Introduction to Linguistics course and an Indigenous Authors class. The tangible results of this workshop were a children s ABC book and a book of short stories, both authored by indigenous Islanders and written in Islander, intended for use in the Islands pre-primary grade. From August-December, 1999, a Fulbright Senior Scholar Research/Lecture Grant made it possible to fulfil another request from the Christian University of San Andres, Providence, and Santa Catalina to continue to advise them on the development of trilingual pedagogical materials. During this time the preprimary ABC Book was revised and the first grade curricula materials were composed and readied for implementation in the experimental schools.

8 234 Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development Which language first? Islander is the language that children in the target population come to school already knowing. They ve learned it at home. It has a high sentimental value. The Colombian Constitution grants minority language speakers the right to initial education in their mother tongue. Therefore, in this experimental project, Islander is the first language used for instructional purposes. Since Islander is an -lexifier language, Islander speakers expressed the desire to take advantage of their language being related to one of the most widely used languages in the world today. Islander -speaking parents want their children to learn Standard. Therefore, the advocates of this trilingual education initiative want as the second language taught in their schools. Spanish is the national language of Colombia. It is especially important for economic and educational upward mobility. Islanders feel it definitely should be one of the languages of a trilingual initiative in the Archipelago. Teachers from the three experimental schools decided Spanish would be the third language taught in this experimental programme. A model for trilingual education The particular model of trilingual education chosen for this specific project was based on research into other bilingual and trilingual education programmes, patterns of language use in the archipelago, and discussions with Islander -speaking teachers and local university faculty. Heavy emphasis was placed on the following expressed desired outcomes of the promoters of the project. They want their children to maintain and respect their traditional language, culture and values. They also want to capitalise on the fact that Islander is lexically related to Standard and to become acknowledged as mediators or brokers of in their Spanish-speaking country. At the same time they recognise the importance of Spanish since they are a part of the country of Colombia. leaders and schoolteachers agreed that the pattern of trilingual education used in Luxembourg would serve as their model. As is true for Islander, Luxembourgish, though not a language, has not always been considered a real language. For years it was considered an oral dialect of German. Luxembourgish language development, however, has been under way for many years, including the publication of a dictionary in the late 1970s. In the Luxembourg model, Luxembourgish, German and French, the three languages spoken in Luxembourg, are all used as media of instruction. According to Hoffmann (1998), Luxembourgish, the first language of the majority of Luxembourgers, is the language of pre-primary education and continues to serve as the language of instruction in first grade when German as a second language is introduced as a subject. French as a third language is introduced in second grade. The similarities between Luxembourg and the archipelago are striking. The mother tongue of both local people groups were/are considered a substandard dialect of another dominant language of wider communication. While both languages experienced vigorous oral use, social attitudes towards a written form

9 -based Trilingual Education 235 of the local language and its use in education had to be overcome. Both begin education in the mother tongue and then, relatively early, progress to the second language which, linguistically, is most closely related to their first language (German for Luxembourg and for the archipelago). This is taking place in spite of the fact that French for Luxembourg and Spanish for the Islands will be the eventual predominate language of formal written and spoken domains and is looked upon as the language of power within their respective countries. In both cases the second and third languages cannot really be termed foreign languages but should be considered as something approximating auxiliary mother tongues (Hoffmann 1998: 150). Because of the genetic relationship between the two languages, reading and writing skills in Luxembourgish are assumed to transfer to German. For speakers of Islander these same reading and writing skills are also expected to transfer to Standard with minimal instruction because of the close lexical relationship between the two languages. Table 1 presents the scope and sequence for using the three languages of San Andres, Providence and Santa Catalina. For the archipelago, Islander, the mother tongue of the targeted students, receives greater attention in the early years, that is, the two years of pre-primary plus first grade. Thus, Islander is the primary medium of instruction for the student s first three years of school. Oral -as-a-second-language is introduced in first grade; reading and writing is introduced in second grade. Oral Spanish is introduced in second grade; reading and writing Spanish is introduced in third grade. Both and Spanish continue throughout the rest of primary school with Spanish increasing in the latter years. Teachers are encouraged to use Islander whenever deemed necessary for student comprehension. Student use of Islander, in or out of the classroom, is never disparaged. Table 1 Pedagogical model/ scope and sequence: Trilingual Education Project 2000, San Andres, Providence, and Santa Catalina Islands 1999 pre-prim A Everything in ABCs 1999 pre-prim B Every thing in ABCs st Grade Reading and writing in Numbers Numbers Math in Social Science concepts Natural Science concepts Environmental print in Social Science concepts Natural Science concepts Social Natural nd Grade Reading and writing in Math in Social Natural Environmental print Oral Oral Spanish in rd Grade Reading and writing in Math in and Spanish Social and Natural Reading and writing in Spanish th Grade Reading and writing in Math in and Spanish Social and Spanish Natural and Spanish Reading and writing in Spanish th Grade Reading and writing in Math in Spanish and Social Science in Spanish Natural Spanish and Reading and writing in Spanish

10 236 Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development Cost effectiveness of trilingual education Some sceptics believe that bi- or trilingual education is more costly than using the national language in a traditional monolingual education approach. A World Bank study done by Patrinos and Velez (1996) demonstrates that Guatemalan Mayan children who attended bilingual schools where pre-first and first grade students are taught in their mother tongue have higher attendance and promotion rates and lower repetition and dropout rates throughout their primary school years than do Mayan children not enrolled in bilingual education. The students in the bilingual schools also receive higher scores in all subjects, including Spanish! This decreased repetition and dropout rate means that more children progress sequentially through their primary school years. This has led Patrinos and Velez (1996: 15) to say, A shift to bilingual schooling in Guatemala would result in considerable cost savings as a result of reduced repetition. The higher quality of education generating higher promotion rates will probably help students to complete the primary education cycle, and will substantially increase total educational levels at a lower cost. It is predicted that the same will be true for San Andres, Providence and Santa Catalina. How the curricula materials were developed The Fulbright Lecture/Research Grant that I received in 1999 was approved specifically to develop the trilingual first grade curriculum and revise the Islander pre-primary ABC Book written the previous year and implemented in pre-primary during Since the curricula for these two grades, except oral Standard, were to be written in Islander, native speakers of the language (in this case all the primary teachers of the three experimental schools) were the primary authors of the material for the new trilingual curriculum. Colombia s national curriculum objectives for all subjects of first grade, along with educational standards for first grade from various states in the US served as guidelines for the content of the maths, social science and natural science materials for the experimental schools. In addition, all of the curricula were prepared to be culturally and linguistically relevant to the ambience of the Islands. The listening, speaking, reading and writing objectives and outcomes shown in Figure 1 were used as a basis for Islander reading and writing instruction. Since there were three experimental schools, each school assumed responsibility for developing the curriculum for one of the following subjects: maths, natural science, or social science. My wife, Diane, and I met with all the primary teachers from each school one half day a week to discuss the next task with the teachers. Usually the university appointed coordinator for the project was also present. After the discussion the teachers designed and developed culturally appropriate materials for the first grade target students. According to their own preference, the teachers used various strategies to write the materials whole group, small groups, or independently. Each person or group was given a task to do a small portion of the planned curriculum. Sometimes it was finished that same day, sometimes it had to be taken home to complete. Teachers from all three experimental schools also produced the Islander reading and writing materials. With finances in short supply it was

11 -based Trilingual Education 237 In first grade language arts, students will learn: LISTENING/SPEAKING. Students: Listen to gather information, solve problems, and enjoy and appreciate literature Present dramatic interpretations of experiences, stories, poems, and plays Participate in group discussions READING. Students: Recognise the conventions of print (e.g. understand that print moves left to right, involves upper and lower case letters, and represents spoken language) Manipulate sounds in spoken words (phonemic awareness) and understand that letters represent sounds (phonics) Read and comprehend first-grade-level text fluently Use graphs, charts, signs, and titles to acquire information Find and connect ideas and themes in different books, stories, and other printed resources Draw conclusions from information gathered WRITING. Students: Write their own name and each letter of the alphabet Gain increasing control of penmanship and punctuation Compose questions, ideas, and stories Write for different purposes, such as composing lists, letters, stories, and poems Engage in the writing process by generating ideas before writing and developing and polishing drafts Figure 1 First grade language arts objectives and outcomes listening, speaking, reading and writing decided to use the Big Book Method to teach reading and writing and to use these same Big Books as the point of departure for teaching sequentially planned social science and natural science lessons. Big Books are stories that have been made into large books so that they can be used with small groups or a whole class (Waters, 1998: 96). Big Books are an excellent way of providing inexpensive reading materials Book sizes are quite large so that a whole class can read and enjoy the book together. the advantage of Big Books is that you only need one book per class. Or you can share books between classes (ibid: 170). The Big Book Method is successfully being employed in many countries of the world, including the United States. Figure 2 depicts the Big Book Method as adapted for the three experimental schools on San Andres Island. A total of 32 Big Books were developed on various themes. Sixteen of these Big Books were specifically for Language Arts, each of which includes instructions for teaching 2, 3, or 4 letters or combinations of letters and writing conventions.

12 238 Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development First Day: Shared reading (1) First reading The teacher tells the students to listen for a specific purpose as the story is read. The following are story elements included in the Big Book listening section. Choose one: Setting, characters, main idea, predicting what will happen next, sequencing, fiction/nonfiction, cause/effect, etc. (2) Second reading The teacher picks any two of the above that were not done during the first reading and discusses them with the students. (Students can listen for them during the story or they can pick them out after the teacher reads the story to them the second time.) Next reading lesson or lessons another day: (The teacher refers to the story often but doesn t need to read the whole story every time one of the following is taught based on the story.) Phonics There is a progression of phonic skills taught in this section. One aspect of the story is selected to teach/reinforce a new letter or letter combination to the students. Beginning consonants, ending consonants, middle consonants, consonant clusters, vowels, vowel combinations, Conventions of print i.e. punctuation or capitalisation one aspect of the story will be referred to that you can use to teach punctuation, capitalisation, or spelling. Writing There is a writing lesson related in some way to each story. The writing lesson encourages the students to use key words, phrases, sentences or conventions of print emphasised in the story. It is not simply copying sentences from the story. The writing lesson can be on a different day during language arts time. Figure 2 The Big Book Method of teaching reading adapted and developed for San Andres, Providence and Santa Catalina Islands, Colombia Nine of the Big Books were especially intended for Social Science, four for Natural Science, and three for Mathematics. All 32 of these Big Books, however, can be used to teach or augment reading and writing and can also be used to support learning in the other subject areas. Thus, each Big Book can be used for 1 2 weeks of instructional time. In addition, a complete culturally and linguistically appropriate first grade mathematics book was developed. Throughout the developmental phases the stories written by the teachers were presented to the orthography committee for editing, specifically spelling and wording changes. The final experimental edition of each story was illustrated by the teachers themselves not only a cost-saving measure, but authenticating ownership and ensuring that the illustrations reflect local culture

13 -based Trilingual Education 239 and environment. Even though these illustrations are culturally accurate, they are definitely inexpert. In the future, if time and money permit, the teacher-made illustrations should probably serve as an illustrative idea for a more accomplished island artist to refine. Near the conclusion of the four months two teachers from each school were given the opportunity to learn Microsoft Publisher, the computer program used for publishing the materials that were produced. The teachers chosen were eager to learn this technology. They, in turn, are responsible for sharing what they learned with other teachers from their school. This was another way of getting materials of satisfactory quality on a limited budget. Finally, the stories and subject materials were photocopied so that each school would have a copy for each of the teachers of pre-primary and first grade. Additional Islander Language development An Islander -Standard glossary was also begun. At present it contains about 4000 words. Members of the orthography committee have gone over all the entries and made the final decisions regarding how to spell Islander words for the glossary. The glossary has quickly become the authority for how to spell San Andres words. Additional Information The Colombian departamento of San Andres, Providence and Santa Catalina has a Secretary of Education appointed by the Ministry of Education from Bogota. The person in this position is one of the political leaders mentioned earlier. Within any public school system there is the inevitable shifting of teachers and administrators around. Shortly after the first grade materials were finished and readied for experimental implementation in the three experimental schools, a new Secretary of Education for the Island Province was installed. The new Secretary of Education initiated a change of some teachers and administrators. This restructuring could have simply been a cost-saving effort or it could have been a means of inhibiting the trilingual education endeavour, as some of the supporters of trilingual education believe. Of course, in any community there are those who are content with the status quo and oppose change, and there are those who are innovators and see change as progress. Some of those may be teachers or administrators. Whatever the case may be, the teachers and administrators that participated in the materials development workshops are determined to proceed with trilingual education. In one experimental school a pro-trilingual education school principal was exchanged for one not in favour of the program. Even so, reports indicate that teachers in this school who participated in developing the curriculum are using the materials anyway. In another experimental school a large number of Spanish-speaking students were enrolled. That school s administrators have divided the school day into a morning session and an afternoon session. The morning session uses the trilingual education curriculum, the afternoon session uses a Spanish curriculum. Parents of children attending that school are made aware of the distinctive nature

14 240 Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development of the two sessions and are required to sign a document stating that they understand which of the two types of curriculum they are enrolling their child in. In the third experimental school the parents of the children, along with teachers and administrators, held a community meeting to make a statement in favour of continuing with the trilingual education curriculum. To that end they are seeking ways to produce more Islander materials. Finally, the Baptist churches that house the three public schools that are participating in this experimental project have taken the initial steps to pull out of the public school system and revert to private schools. Whether this action is actually carried out, it is obvious that they have a desire to have more control over the education of their children. The author has been invited by the Christian University of San Andres, Providence and Santa Catalina to return to the Islands to facilitate the development of 2nd grade curricula and to conduct additional teacher training workshops. Hopefully, this will happen. In the meantime, however, it has been recommended that those teachers and principals who participated in the previous workshops be used to train teachers who are new to the experimental schools. They are also encouraged to continue to develop the educational materials that they feel they need. Correspondence Any correspondence should be directed to Dr Ronald C. Morren, Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics, 7500 W. Camp Wisdom Road, Dallas, Texas 75236, USA (ron_morren@gial.org). References Baker, C. (1996) Foundations of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism (2nd edn). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Cummins, J. (1981) The role of primary language development in promoting educational success for language minority students. In California State Department of Education, Schooling and Language Minority Students: A Theoretical Framework (pp. 3 49). Los Angeles: California State University, Evaluation, Dissemination and Assessment Center. Decker, K. (1996) Orthography development for Belize. In F. Ingemann (ed.) 1994 Mid-America Linguistics Conference Papers, Vol. II. Lawrence, KS: The University of Kansas. Website: Dutcher, N. (1982) The use of first and second languages in education: Selected case studies. World Bank Document 506. Washington, DC: World Bank. Dutcher, N. (1996) The use of first and second languages in education: A review of international experience. Pacific Islands Discussion Paper Series No. 1. Washington, DC: World Bank. Grimes, B.F. (ed.) (2000) Ethnologue, Volume 1, Languages of the World (14th edn). Dallas: SIL International. Gudschinsky, S.C. (1973) A Manual of Literacy for Preliterate Peoples. Ukarumpa, Papua New Guinea: Summer Institute of Linguistics. Hoffmann, C. (1998) Luxembourg and the European schools. In J. Cenoz and F. Genesee (eds) Beyond Bilingualism (pp ). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Holm, J.A. (1982) The of Nicaragua s MiskitoCoast: Its SociolingisticHistory and a Comparative Study of its Lexicon and Syntax. PhD disseration 1978, University of London, University College (UK). Ann Arbor: University Microfilms International. Lambert, W.E. and Tucker, R.G. (1972) Bilingual Education of Children: The St. Lambert Experiment. Rowley, MA: Newbury House.

15 -based Trilingual Education 241 Larson, M.L. and Davis, P.M. (1981) Bilingual Education: An Experience in Peruvian Amazonia. Dallas: Summer Institute of Linguistics Modiano, N. (1973) Indian Education in the Chiapas Highlands. Dallas: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Morren, R. C. (1988) Bilingual education curriculum development in Guatemala. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 9 (4), Murtagh, E.J. (1982) and as languages of instruction in bilingual education with Aboriginal Australians: Some research findings. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 36, Patrinos, H. and Velez, E. (1996) Costs and benefits of bilingual education in Guatemala A partial analysis. World Bank Human CapitalDevelopment Working Papers. Washington, DC: World Bank. Ravel, J. L. and Thomas, P. (1985) Etat de la Reforme de l Enseignement aux Seychelles ( ). Paris: Ministre des Relations Exterierures, Cooperation et Developpement. Rosenthal, R. and Jacobsen, L. (1968) Pygmalion in the Classroom. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Siegel, J. (1999) s and minority dialects in education: An overview. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 20 (6), Turnage, L.C. (n.d.) Island Heritage. Photocopied document obtained from the Christian University of San Andres, Providence and Santa Catalina. No publishing information. Based on dated bibliography citations, probably published around Thomas, W.P. and Collier, V. (1997) School effectiveness for language minority students. Washington, DC: National Clearinghouse for Bilingual Education. Website: UNESCO. (1953) The Use of Vernacular Languages in Education. Paris: UNESCO. Vollmer, L. (1997) The History of the Settling Process of the Archipelago of San Andres, Old Providence and St. Catherine. San Andres, Isla: Ediciones Archipelago. Waters, G. (1998) Local Literacies: Theory and Practice. Dallas: Summer Institute of Linguistics.