English is the medium of educational instruction and the most widely used official language in Fiji. This means that success in education and at the workplace depends, to a very large extent, on proficiency in this language.
For this reason, the pervasive inadequacy in English language skills has become a matter of national concern and debate. This problem cannot be “fixed” without understanding one of its root causes.
Failure to recognise the L2 role of English
The whole educational curriculum has one fundamental flaw: that it does not clearly and effectively recognise that English, the language of instruction, is a second language in Fiji.
An examination of the National Curriculum Framework (NCF) 2013 shows that it mentions the role of L2 in a few casual asides, but does not mention even once that this area requires special attention as all students learn in the L2 and all teachers teach in this language.
This is a failure to recognise and understand the role of an L2 and how it underpins all education, communication, and higher order cognitive outcomes.
Most importantly, it creates the fallacious assumption that English is a first language (L1) in Fiji — and this becomes the cause of all our literacy woes leading as it does to the design of theoretically inappropriate syllabi, teaching methods and teacher training.
Ignoring the L2 status of English results in anomalous course design and unrealistic learning outcomes.
Consider for instance a chart that reads “Encourage children to use rhyming words” in an Early Childhood Education classroom.
In this class, the medium of instruction is English, while 95 per cent of the students, aged between 4 and 5 years, probably speak only Fijian or Hindi.
If they have learnt rhymes in their first language they might be able to do this task. But is it possible for them to produce rhyming words in a language whose words and sound system they do not know? Clearly this task is not designed for an L2 classroom.
Furthermore, the failure to recognise that English is an L2 in Fiji has the most detrimental effect on teacher-education programs and course design.
Firstly, there is a lack of recognition for the fact that teachers of English in Fiji are Nonnative-English-Speaking Teachers (NNESTs) (Maum, 2002).
At present a great majority of teachers of English in the world are NNESTs. Research indicates that the one advantage NNESTs have over NS teachers is the greater metalinguistic knowledge of English. This is because they “have learned grammar, not acquired it unconsciously…”, and they are also able to apply L2 acquisition theories to their own experience of learning English and subsequently use these effectively to inform their pedagogic tasks (Sung, 2012; Moussu & Llurda, 2008, Madrid & Cañado, 2004).
Do teachers of English in Fiji have access to this greater metalinguistic knowledge? Maybe not, if we analyse the teacher education program structures. In Fiji, secondary school teachers must specialise in two teaching majors. Course structure generally stipulates 8 or 9 courses for each major — that is, between 33 per cent and 37 per cent of the undergraduate program.
Trainee teachers of English, however, study three, not two, subjects in a double major because English includes literature in English and English language.
Clearly this two-teaching-subject policy arises from a failure to recognise the L2 nature of English in Fiji and the resulting special needs of prospective teachers of English.
In addition, most institutions do not prescribe that English majors students study an equal number of language and literature courses.
In fact, worldwide, students choose literature over language or linguistics courses.
In effect, the language/linguistic courses studied by teachers of English is likely to be less than 18 per cent of their total program.
All teachers of English, and particularly non-native English speaking teachers, have special disciplinary knowledge (Grabe, Stoller & Tardy 2000) content needs in order to impart linguistic competence, discourse competence, sociolinguistic competence and strategic competence. Would a couple of courses in language /linguistics be adequate training for teaching a second language in a second language?
Primary teachers study 7 or 8 teaching subjects together with educational theory.
In a three year primary education program, only two courses may be assigned to each teaching subject. It must be noted that these two language courses comprise of both content and methodology, not only of content.
Should English not have additional weight considering that it is not only a teaching subject but also the medium of instruction? As such it requires a certain level of teacher’s proficiency for effective classroom pedagogic and communication tasks. How much “English” could trainee teachers learn in two courses, when half of each is methodology?
To sum up, who’s teaching English, and how much of it, to teachers of English?
In Singapore, where English plays the same role it does in Fiji, prospective teachers-of-English must pass an English proficiency test “before they can be deployed to schools as untrained teachers” .
In 2012, Britain, an L1 English speaking country, proposed “tougher tests” in literacy, numeracy and logic before admission to teacher training programs, in order to raise the quality of teachers for quality education of students. The English test includes longer written exercises, spelling, grammar and punctuation. .
Why do we not have proficiency testing in Fiji? Simply because we fail to perceive the reality that our teachers are non-native speakers of English.
Recommendations
In Fiji, policy makers need to recognise that all educational endeavour takes place in a second language. The failure to do so has resulted in a pervasive and deplorable lack of language skills for educational purposes.
As such, teacher education programs must give adequate metalinguistic disciplinary knowledge of English.
Secondary teaching education programs must recognise literature in English and English language as two distinct subjects.
Language must be treated as a subject in its own right and not subsumed under literature or literacy.
Policy change should be made to consider language and literature as two teaching subjects. This will enable teachers of English (and of the vernaculars) to gain adequate disciplinary knowledge.
Syllabi, methodology and teacher-trainingw should be centred on the recognition of the L2 nature of English.
In Britain, secondary school teachers of English must have a postgraduate qualification in TESOL/TESL because the student population is of diverse linguistic backgrounds.
This qualification is also considered desirable in many countries that have linguistically diverse populations. One wonders why the relevance of TESL has not been perceived in Fiji. Fiji should follow suit in order to better equip teachers to teach English as a second language.
One of the best ways to ensure improvement in literacy skills is to have mandatory English language proficiency testing for all teachers, regardless of their teaching subjects.
This can be done prior to enrolment into teacher training programmes. If Fiji incorporates proficiency testing of teachers it will raise national consciousness on the importance of good language skills prompting self-effort to partner policy making.
This will facilitate the achievement of greater proficiency in English.
The above measures will ensure that teachers are adequately prepared not only to teach English but also to teach in English. This is a long-term solution to the problem of poor language skills, but it will achieve what short-term quick-fix solutions will not.
* Minakshi Maharaj is the AHOS at the School of Communication, Language and Literature, Department of Language, Literature and Communication, Fiji National University. The views are hers and not of this newspaper.
