In June, at the commissioning of the US$5.15 million Good Hope Secondary School, President Irfaan Ali hinted that based upon the trajectory the country is on and location, “We now have to move towards making Spanish compulsory in our school system.”
Last Tuesday, at a press conference held at the Office of the President, President Ali stated, “As of September, Spanish will be compulsory in our primary school curriculum… I have been told we have adequate capability especially at the secondary level to have this compulsory Spanish taught and we have engaged a number of bilateral partners to loan us human resource assets in this period of transition.”
As expected, pronouncements of this nature are greeted with a gamut of comments. Based on the relatively minute sample size of responses from online readers of this publication, which range from the clearly partisan: Hindi should be the compulsory language; to the impractical, Chinese should be the obligatory one, the declaration has generated quite a bit of interest.
In an interview with this newspaper last Tuesday, Education Minister Priya Manickchand stated that every effort will be made to have a larger percentage of the student population gain access to Spanish lessons and teachers, whilst noting that the ministry, through its Learning Channel, had been airing Spanish classes on a daily basis. The minister added that Portuguese and French are also currently offered in schools at the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) examinations.
Any endeavour to improve the school curriculum should be given the credit it readily deserves, and the concept of introducing a foreign language to fourth and fifth graders is an excellent idea. Although various studies over the years offer conflicting views on the ideal age ranges at which children should be introduced to a second language, ranging from six/seven to 11/12, the most recent major study conducted by MIT researchers in May 2018, found that there is a ‘critical period’ for second language learning. Ideally, children should start no later than ten years old, since the researchers did not see much difference between those who start at birth and those who commenced at age ten. However, for those who begun after the age of ten, it was near impossible for them to achieve native-like proficiency, as compared to the earlier starters.
A bold venture of this nature will require the knowledge and expertise of a suitably qualified professional to create, implement, monitor and modify as required, the framework for its success. It is hoped that the person selected for this exercise is appointed based on the aforementioned criteria, and not solely on allegiance to the ruling party, as is the apparent wont at the moment for the influential posts. A boundary shifting exercise of this nature will take a few years to gain across the board acceptance – parental support will be critical – and success. The short-term goal should be a specific percentage of the student body attaining a certain level of fluency by sixth/seventh year, i.e., the year prior to sitting the CSEC. A detailed report of the programme at the end of the tenth year should indicate whether the overall goal is being met, which should be at least sixty percent attainment of bilingualism, with the remaining students split between fluency and a basic understanding of the foreign language.
One of the major stumbling blocks in mastering a foreign language is the learner’s lack of a thorough understanding of the structure and workings – i.e the grammar – of his/her native tongue. Based on the relatively poor performances across the board at the CSEC English examination and the abhorrent failure rate of English by first year University of Guyana students, these numbers do not augur well for the success of this initiative. The general malaise in the inability to grasp the fundamentals of the English Language might not necessarily be a reflection of our teachers’ knowledge and teaching skills, but rather the unwillingness of the younger generation to allocate time away from their smartphones and online gaming activities in order to enhance their reading and literacy skill sets.
Does the Ministry of Education have any long-term plans to further develop the minority of students who show a flair for, and interest in foreign languages, and wish to pursue careers as linguists and international translators? How about designating one high school specifically for the Arts? There aspiring linguists can be exposed to Spanish, French, Portuguese, and other languages, such as Dutch or German, and artists of all genres can be guided early on their chosen career path. If such an idea was to come to fruition, one consideration should be the reintroduction of the teaching of the language of Latin, a practice, which, unfortunately, was abandoned in the early 1970s.
Yes, Latin has been labelled a dead language, only spoken today with any kind of regularity in Vatican City, but the benefits of learning it cannot be overlooked. It is a highly organised and logical language, akin to the study of mathematics, which sharpens the mind, develops critical thinking, and enhances problem solving abilities. Latin, the universal language of Western Civilization provides a key to the five Romance languages; Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian and Romanian. Our unique location provides easy access to Spanish speaking South America, Brazil (Portuguese), Martinique, Guadeloupe, and Cayenne (French), and Suriname (Dutch), thus summer holidays will abound with opportunities for aspiring linguists to immerse themselves in the languages and cultures of their pursuits.
Saludos a todos los estudiantes.
