Category: Volume 6(3): 2022

Posted on

Editorial: The Language Policy and Planning Conference before, during and “after” the Covid-19 Pandemic: A Three-year Wrap

Mela Sarkar, McGill University

With this second special issue devoted to papers that would have been presented at the LPP (“Multidisciplinary Approaches in Language Policy and Planning”) conference 2020, had our planning process, like so much else, not been steamrollered by the global COVID-19 pandemic, we finally wave goodbye to a three-year-long engagement with LPP conference organization and J-BILD guest editorship. 

Because we had to cancel LPP2020, both the papers in this special issue were in fact presented at LPP2021, well over a year ago. That was the occasion of the first all-online edition of LPP; as readers may recall, it was all rather experimental at the time. Thankfully, LPP2021, hosted at McGill University and chaired by Amir Kalan and myself, was successful beyond our hopes, and gave us the courage to proceed with the planning of a hybrid version of the conference in 2022. We discovered in short order that planning a hybrid conference in fact means planning and putting on not one but two conferences—one all online, the other all in-person—and then also figuring out ways in which participants at each can interact in as natural a manner as possible. With the help of a large team of helpers, we managed to pull it off, as readers may see from the BILD blog post that resulted. The official conference website will remain active for the foreseeable future.

Readers interested in the future of the Multidisciplinary Approaches in Language Policy and Planning conference are requested to check the conference website from time to time for updates. At the moment, we are in negotiations with possible future hosts for the conference, and are reasonably certain that LPP, if it continues, will move to a biennial model. It will therefore no longer be the annual conference that many of us have known for nearly ten years. We learned a tremendous amount from three years of planning and running the conference (or not running it!), and are grateful for the extraordinarily supportive relationships with reviewers, authors, session chairs, graduate student helpers, and of course the McGill-based team—augmented by volunteers from all over the globe—that sustained us throughout. Many thanks to all for their hard work over one, two, or in some cases three full years.

Many thanks as well to J-BILD for graciously agreeing to give our LPP authors the space to publish the papers you see here, as well as the papers in the first special issue. 

Article Summaries

As in the first of these special issues, our LPP/J-BILD authors take us to corners of the world very distant from our Canadian home base as they explore questions of language policy in education.

Research Studies

In “The secret handshake of Dutch: How the Dutch have systematically denied access to their language in the Caribbean,” Terri Bakker paints a disturbing portrait of the effects of old-school colonial mentality on the education of today’s children in a part of the Dutch Antilles that may be unfamiliar to our readers. Bakker’s forthright approach to analyzing language policy in education for the islands of Saba and St. Eustatius is thought-provoking and may, it is to be hoped, lead to further inquiries into a situation that seems to be calling out for reform.

Innocent Fasse Mbouya and Alain Takam also put the case for pedagogical reform in “Towards the introduction of the teaching of technical English in technical education in Cameroon: Pre-requisites and prospects.” This window into curriculum planning in Cameroon, part of a larger project investigating the delivery of technical education in that country, will give readers valuable insight into the more pressing needs of a key educational sector in an African context where English as a language of education occupies a somewhat ambiguous status and where better policy and practices around English for Specific Purposes (ESP) is clearly much needed. Both these papers are very much policy papers, thus rounding off our engagement with our LPP authors with a good solid period.

Posted on

Towards the introduction of the teaching of technical English in Technical education in Cameroon: Pre-requisites and Prospects

~ Innocent Fasse Mbouya, University of Douala, Cameroon
~ Alain Flaubert Takam, University of Lethbridge, Canada

ABSTRACT. This study is a follow-up of three previous ones by the same authors. The first one culminated in a language-in-education policy article in 2018. The second study (2022) revisits student, parent and teacher attitudes to, and practices of, English Language teaching and learning in Cameroon Technical Education. It strongly recommends the development of English Language teachers’ capacities in technical education (TE) to teach ESP. The third led to a paper focussing on the achievements, constraints and perspectives of the teaching of English in TE (in press), underscoring the necessity of introducing English for Specific Purposes (ESP) in TE. The present work, which draws from interviews with pedagogic inspectors and the analysis of key relevant documents, proposes steps towards an effective introduction of ESP in TE by outlining general guiding principles for key areas, such as syllabus content, teacher training, integration of competence-based approaches, and didactic material. The study takes into consideration the current education orientation law, existing TE curricula, and prevailing teacher training policy and programmes which include the socio-economic context of Cameroon. The authors understand that each of the aspects addressed should generate more detailed studies.

RÉSUMÉ. Cette étude fait suite à trois précédentes réalisées par les mêmes auteurs. La première a abouti à un article sur la politique linguistique en éducation en 2018. La seconde étude (2022) réexamine les attitudes et les pratiques des élèves, parents et enseignants quant à l’enseignement /l’apprentissage de l’anglais dans l’enseignement technique (ET) au Cameroun, recommandant fortement le renforcement des capacités des enseignants d’anglais à enseigner l’AdS. La troisième, portant sur les réalisations, les contraintes et les perspectives de l’enseignement de l’anglais dans l’ET (sous presse), souligne la nécessité d’introduire l’anglais de spécialité (AdS) dans l’ET. Le présent travail, s’appuyant sur des entretiens avec des inspecteurs de pédagogie et l’analyse de documents clés, propose des mesures pour une introduction efficace de l’AdS dans l’ET. Elle propose des principes directeurs généraux pour les programmes, la formation des enseignants, l’intégration de l’approche par compétences et le matériel didactique. L’étude considère la loi actuelle sur l’orientation de l’éducation, les programmes de l’ET, la politique et les programmes de formation des enseignants, y compris le contexte socio-économique du Cameroun, chacun des aspects abordés devant conduire à des études plus détaillées.

Posted on

The Secret Handshake of Dutch: How the Dutch Have Systematically Denied Access to their Language in the Caribbean

Terri Lynne Bakker, Language Planning and Policy Coordinator: Saba and St. Eustatius, Saba Educational Foundation

ABSTRACT. Despite recent decades of intervention, the Dutch language remains inaccessible to the non-Dutch speaking populations of the Caribbean. Dutch colonialism ushered in multicultural development, yet also maintained Dutch as the de facto language of power. This article examines how the Dutch advanced their linguistic ideology throughout history and how currently, Dutch remains the language of exclusion and failure for the English-creole-speaking populations of Saba and St. Eustatius, maintaining European control over the public entities of the islands. This study analyses the relevant histories within the framework of historical persistence (Nunn, 2012) and identifies some of the underlying ideologies using ethnological methodology (McCarty, 2015), highlighting the dichotomy between the coloniser and the colonised. In sum, this examination points toward the Dutch people’s reluctance to share their language with people of other cultures, preferring to maintain sole proprietorship of the language of power. Addressing this underlying dogma is vital to any attempts to equalise the language playing field for the islands’ inhabitants.

RÉSUMÉ. La langue néerlandaise demeure inaccessible aux peuples non-néerlandais qui habitent les territoires colonisés antérieurement par les Pays-Bas, malgré les décennies récentes remplies d’interventions. Le colonialisme néerlandais apporta aux Antilles néerlandaises un ère de développement multiculturel, tout en gardant en place le néerlandais en tant que langue de pouvoir dans les faits. Le présent article cherche à comprendre comment les Néerlandais ont réussi à promouvoir leur idéologie linguistique dans cette partie du monde à travers l’histoire, et également la façon dont la langue néerlandaise est restée la langue de l’exclusion et de l’échec pour les gens des îles de Saba et de St. Eustatius, un peuple qui parlent un créole basé sur l’anglais. Le contrôle européen sur les entités publics est désormais maintenu dans ces îles. Cette étude analyse les histoires pertinentes dans le cadre de la « persistance historique » (Nunn, 2012). Nous identifions des idéologies qui sous-tendent la situation, à l’aide d’une méthodologie ethnologique (McCarty, 2015, tout en mettant l’emphase sur la dichotomie entre le colonisateur et le colonisé. Pour résumer, cette étude démontre que le peuple néerlandais refuse carrément de partager leur langue avec des gens issus d’autres cultures, choisissant plutôt de rester les seules et uniques propriétaires de la langue de pouvoir. Si l’on cherche à rendre plus équitable la situation linguistique aux Antilles néerlandaises pour les peuples colonisés, il faudra s’adresser à ce dogme.

css.php