If I don’t learn English, I’m going to suffer: Gambian lower basic school children’s voice in the medium of instruction debate

Resumo

This article presents the results of an English Writing Contest that was organized in a public lower basic school in rural Gambia, West Africa, as part of a larger ethnographic research on English and literacy practices in The Gambia. The Gambia is a small ‘Anglophone’ country in West Africa with a straight-for-English English-only educational policy. In the writing contest, pupils from grade 4 to 6 (199 in sum) were asked to comment on one of the proposed topics: (1) Why it is important for me to learn English, and (2) Why I don’t like English. The attitudes toward English in the pupil’s compositions were considerably positive. At the same time
however, they showed substantial problems writing English words and sentences, typical of “grassroots literacy”. The data are used as a from below perspective in the debate on the medium of instruction for African schools. Based on the children’s voice, i.e. what they write (contents), and their technical performance, i.e. how they write (form), I will argue against the use of English as a medium of instruction throughout, but also against the argument of linguistic imperialism. Instead, I suggest that the only way forward in this matter is to expand and officialise the as yet unofficial practice of multilingual classroom communication and to introduce local language teaching in the curriculum, both as subject and as language of instruction.