Creole-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 (1618–1648), English 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 1627 30 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 English
arrived a small contingent of Dutch were already present. For the next 160 years
the English, 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
English 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 1851. 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
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1847 this same Livingston founded the First Baptist Church on San Andres. A
school was also established. Both the church and the school utilised English 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 English’ (Vollmer, 1997: 56). For centuries the Islanders have looked to other
English-lexifier Creole 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 English-speaking plantation owners including
the probable exchange of slaves with other English-speaking colonies, the
preferred language of school and church for the Afro-Caribbean inhabitants of
these islands is Standard English. The preferred language of oral communication
for other domains is Western Caribbean Creole English (Grimes, 2000), referred
to by native speakers as Islander English, Caribbean English, or simply Creole.
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 English and Standard English 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 English 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 English-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 English-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 English speakers, English is still the preferred language. Where these
Baptist churches also have a school, Spanish and English are both used as media
of instruction. Islander English is still the language of choice for most native
islanders when at home or interacting with Islander English-speaking friends.
As they say, ‘It is the sweetest language to speak in’.
Creole-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 English-speaking communities. Much of their authority comes from the
Colombian capitol, Bogota. The Creole religious leaders (pastors, priests, and
elders) obtain their authority from their position and maintain that position with
the consent of the Islander English-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
English-speaking religious leaders view Islander English 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 English 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 English as a substandard form
of Standard English 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
English – not Islander English. Their view of Islander English is that it is ‘broken’
or ‘bastardised’ English 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 English 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 English-speaking children using
Islander English, English 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.
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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 English 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.
English 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 English-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 English ABC Book reported that the Creole children exhibited more
pleasure and eagerness for the Creole stories than for stories in either English or
Spanish. The teachers concluded that it was because the children understood the
Creole-based Trilingual Education
231
stories and that they were culturally relevant to the children’s environment. This
illustrates that using linguistically and culturally appropriate Creole stories to
teach Islander English-speaking children to read may present greater motivation
and interest among said students.
Rationale for Trilingual Education
According to Siegel (1999: 513–14) 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 Creole
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 English.
This helps them learn more about English 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 Creole-speaking child, therefore, should not have to learn two other languages
(e.g. Spanish and English) 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 English (their mother tongue), English and Spanish.
Creole Languages in Education
Children who speak any Creole 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 Creole to be used in education, and (2)
the perception of parents toward their language. Many do not see their Creole as
a legitimate language and view its use in education as a waste of time.
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Siegel (1999: 509–10) gives four obstacles Creole-speaking students face
regarding the use of Creole 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 English-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 English-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
Creole-based Trilingual Education
233
Creole language. Up to this time, however, the few Creole 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 Creole 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, English and Islander English. The committee’s
mandate was to make decisions about standardising the written form of Islander
English.
The development of a standard way of writing Islander English began with
the orthography committee looking at the orthography work previously done in
Belize by Decker (1996). Belizean Creole English is very similar to Islander
English. The Belizean Creole orthography committee had looked at alternative
approaches to systematically writing their language and decided that written
Belizean Creole 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 English. This is done by choosing the most
representative ways that sounds are symbolised in English. 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 English’ (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
Creole language to look like Spanish, preferring it to look more like English.
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
English-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 English, 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.
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Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development
Which language first?
Islander English 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 English is the first language used for instructional purposes.
Since Islander English is an English-lexifier language, Islander English
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
English-speaking parents want their children to learn Standard English. Therefore, the advocates of this trilingual education initiative want English 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
English-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 English is lexically related to Standard English and to become acknowledged as mediators or brokers of English 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.
Creole leaders and schoolteachers agreed that the pattern of trilingual education used in Luxembourg would serve as their model. As is true for Islander
English, Luxembourgish, though not a Creole 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
Creole-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 English 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 English these same reading and writing
skills are also expected to transfer to Standard English 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 English,
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
English is the primary medium of instruction for the student’s first three years of
school. Oral English-as-a-second-language is introduced in first grade; reading
and writing English is introduced in second grade. Oral Spanish is introduced in
second grade; reading and writing Spanish is introduced in third grade. Both
English and Spanish continue throughout the rest of primary school with
Spanish increasing in the latter years. Teachers are encouraged to use Islander
English whenever deemed necessary for student comprehension. Student use of
Islander English, 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
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
pre-prim A pre-prim B
1st Grade
2nd Grade
3rd Grade
4th Grade
Everything
Every
Reading and Reading and
Reading Reading and
in Creole
thing in
writing in
writing in and writing writing in
ABCs
Creole
Creole
English
in English
English
ABCs
Numbers
Numbers
Math in
Math in
Math in
Math in
Creole
English
English and
English
Spanish
and Spanish
Social
Science
concepts
Natural
Science
concepts
Environmental
print in
Creole
Social
Science
concepts
Social
Science in
Creole
Social
Science in
Creole
Social
Social
Science in
Science in
English and English and
Creole
Spanish
Natural
Natural
Natural
Natural
Natural
Science
Science in
Science in
Science in
Science in
concepts
Creole
English
English
English and
Spanish
Environ- Oral English Oral Spanish Reading Reading and
mental print
and writing writing in
in Creole
in Spanish
Spanish
2004
5th Grade
Reading
and
writing in
English
Math in
Spanish
and
English
Social Science
in Spanish
Natural
Science in
Spanish and
English
Reading
and
writing in
Spanish
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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 English pre-primary ABC Book written the previous year and implemented in pre-primary during 1999. Since the curricula for these two grades,
except oral Standard English, were to be written in Islander English, 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 English 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
English reading and writing materials. With finances in short supply it was
Creole-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.
Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development
238
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 Creole culture
Creole-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 English Language development
An Islander English-Standard English 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
English words for the glossary. The glossary has quickly become the ‘authority’
for how to spell San Andres Creole 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
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 English 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 ([email protected]).
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