REMOVE ALL "NO VERNACULAR" SIGNAGE FROM SCHOOLS-- FOLKLORE BOARD TO SCHOOLS.
Acting Director of the National Folklore Board, Nana Adjoa Adobea Asante has call on all school heads to remove all " NO VERNACULAR" Signage from campuses.
According to Nana Adjoa Adobea Asante, it's disheartening to see pupils been prevented to use their own mother tongue to express themselves during leisure hours in schools.
Children's knowledge and skills transfer over languages.. Feelings, which are important for the child's development, are also passed on through the mother tongue. Parents can support their children's second and foreign language learning
by using mother tongue diversely, reading and telling stories.
(Nana Kwasi Ampofo, the writers opinion)
However, various schools in Ghana, and some other parts of Africa, children as young as five are punished for speaking African languages, indigenous languages and mother tongues at school. The modes of punishment differ. The most common one in Ghana is wearing a dirty sack until you meet someone else speaking their mother tongue and then you pass the sack on to them. In some schools, there are specific pupils and students tasked with compiling lists of fellow pupils and students speaking mother tongues. This list is then handed over to a teacher responsible for punishing these language rules breakers.
In some case some schools have aprons that read: “Shame on me, I was speaking vernacular handed over to an offender of the No Vernacular rule, who then is tasked with finding the next culprit to give the apron. Most of the punishments, in their symbolism emphasise the uselessness of the African languages.
“That sums up our self loathing and inferiority complex. Junot Diaz once said we do a better job of enforcing white supremacy ourselves than white supremacists ever could. I should add, notice how the punishment consists of wearing sackcloth. The image is telling. You are rags if you speak your own language.
“It’s outrageous. What a slave mentality that a colonial language is considered higher or better/more worth than their own local language. Unbelievable. Do the Europeans learn any African language in school? No. Why not? Because we are not proud of our heritage, not proud of our languages, not proud of Black African history. These teachers need to be fired.”
The loud symbolism and absurdity of the punishments for speaking local languages and the colonial roots of the practice aside, there is no convincing argument for the contemporary ostracising of African languages in African schools, sixty years and thereabouts after independence. The justifications for the present-day banning of African languages in African schools range from the need to prioritise the learning and quality of English/French (insert any other European colonial Language) over the local languages to the building of national unity and identity through globalisation.
Below I show the demerits of these arguments.
Speaking African languages affects the learning of English
It has been argued that vernacular affects the learning and speaking of English (or any other colonial language) thus children need to unlearn their mother tongue's so they can learn and speak English better. Speaking English with indigenous languages inflicted accents to those who make this argument is not a good job of speaking the language. There is effort put into enforcing a British accent (whatever that means). The assumption is that the less local language you speak the better your English speaking and writing abilities and vice versa.
Henry Odhiambo II, who studied from a school where children would be caned for using their mothers tongues at school in rural Kenya says that:
“it instilled so much fear that when we met outside school the kids weren’t sure what language to speak to each other thinking they may be reported and get a beating, the sad thing is that what was being spoken would pass for gibberish if a true English speaker were to give their own honest opinion.”
That not withstanding, in Ghana when a science student failed in English but pass all his/her Biology, Chemistry, Physics and Further Mathematics, he/she denied the access to become a Doctor who will attend to people who speak Twi, Ga, Ewe, Frafra,Hausa etc.
In any case, how was the candidate able to read and write to pass the aforementioned subjects?
This is not to say speaking or learning English language is bad.
The debate continue in some other day.
Acting Director of the National Folklore Board, Nana Adjoa Adobea Asante has call on all school heads to remove all " NO VERNACULAR" Signage from campuses.
According to Nana Adjoa Adobea Asante, it's disheartening to see pupils been prevented to use their own mother tongue to express themselves during leisure hours in schools.
Children's knowledge and skills transfer over languages.. Feelings, which are important for the child's development, are also passed on through the mother tongue. Parents can support their children's second and foreign language learning
by using mother tongue diversely, reading and telling stories.
(Nana Kwasi Ampofo, the writers opinion)
However, various schools in Ghana, and some other parts of Africa, children as young as five are punished for speaking African languages, indigenous languages and mother tongues at school. The modes of punishment differ. The most common one in Ghana is wearing a dirty sack until you meet someone else speaking their mother tongue and then you pass the sack on to them. In some schools, there are specific pupils and students tasked with compiling lists of fellow pupils and students speaking mother tongues. This list is then handed over to a teacher responsible for punishing these language rules breakers.
In some case some schools have aprons that read: “Shame on me, I was speaking vernacular handed over to an offender of the No Vernacular rule, who then is tasked with finding the next culprit to give the apron. Most of the punishments, in their symbolism emphasise the uselessness of the African languages.
“That sums up our self loathing and inferiority complex. Junot Diaz once said we do a better job of enforcing white supremacy ourselves than white supremacists ever could. I should add, notice how the punishment consists of wearing sackcloth. The image is telling. You are rags if you speak your own language.
“It’s outrageous. What a slave mentality that a colonial language is considered higher or better/more worth than their own local language. Unbelievable. Do the Europeans learn any African language in school? No. Why not? Because we are not proud of our heritage, not proud of our languages, not proud of Black African history. These teachers need to be fired.”
The loud symbolism and absurdity of the punishments for speaking local languages and the colonial roots of the practice aside, there is no convincing argument for the contemporary ostracising of African languages in African schools, sixty years and thereabouts after independence. The justifications for the present-day banning of African languages in African schools range from the need to prioritise the learning and quality of English/French (insert any other European colonial Language) over the local languages to the building of national unity and identity through globalisation.
Below I show the demerits of these arguments.
Speaking African languages affects the learning of English
It has been argued that vernacular affects the learning and speaking of English (or any other colonial language) thus children need to unlearn their mother tongue's so they can learn and speak English better. Speaking English with indigenous languages inflicted accents to those who make this argument is not a good job of speaking the language. There is effort put into enforcing a British accent (whatever that means). The assumption is that the less local language you speak the better your English speaking and writing abilities and vice versa.
Henry Odhiambo II, who studied from a school where children would be caned for using their mothers tongues at school in rural Kenya says that:
“it instilled so much fear that when we met outside school the kids weren’t sure what language to speak to each other thinking they may be reported and get a beating, the sad thing is that what was being spoken would pass for gibberish if a true English speaker were to give their own honest opinion.”
That not withstanding, in Ghana when a science student failed in English but pass all his/her Biology, Chemistry, Physics and Further Mathematics, he/she denied the access to become a Doctor who will attend to people who speak Twi, Ga, Ewe, Frafra,Hausa etc.
In any case, how was the candidate able to read and write to pass the aforementioned subjects?
This is not to say speaking or learning English language is bad.
The debate continue in some other day.
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