[EDLING:1378] Mauritius: The National Performance in Languages

[Francis M. Hult]

Mauritius Times

The National Performance in Languages

http://www.mauritiustimes.com/240306sooba.htm

-- Paramanund Soobarah


All 17500 students of the stream who sat for the School Certificate in 2005 
offered English and French. I assume they had to. The percentages of those 
scoring “C’ or better in the subjects was as follows: English 37%, French 69%. 
This is nothing to gloat about, particularly when one remembers that the full 
stream numbered 30,000 when they sat for the CPE in 2000. The corresponding 
percentages when the passes are related to the full stream are English 22% and 
French 40%. Compared to some African countries this is a good rating. But if 
the aim is for us to become the knowledge hub of the Indian Ocean, then 
comparison with Burkina Faso and Niger will take us nowhere. We have to look 
to Singapore and Finland; compared to these countries, we have some way to go, 
particularly when as in our case even good scores at the School Certificate in 
English or French do not indicate proficiency in these languages. Whatever be 
the strengths of our teachers for inculcating written English and French, they 
do not seem to have been adequately trained for the teaching the oral versions 
of these languages. The MIE and the Linguistics Department of the University 
must bear a great responsibility for the failure of our Nation in matters 
linguistic. With the sort of comments that we regularly receive from people 
responsible for recruitment to the BPO outfits, the heads of these 
organisations ought to resign if they had any sense of self-respect left. 

In the case of French it is well anchored in our mores that success at the 
Alliance Française exams are much more meaningful than at the Cambridge School 
Certificate. Even then, many students, with the Alliance Française 
certificates in their pockets, find it difficult to overcome the corrosive 
effects of Creole: they fail to pronounce the sound “R” at the end of 
syllables, and are unable to manage the mute “E” correctly. The rules for “E 
muet” or “E instable” as it is also called are set out in all textbooks of 
French pronunciation, beginning with that classic, Pierre Fouché’s “Traité de 
Prononçiation Française”. That text, or Pierre Léon’s “Prononciation du 
Français standard” ought to be compulsory reading and practice material at the 
MIE for all trainee teachers and available in multiple numbers in all our 
school libraries. Even so, parents who elect to submit their children to the 
examinations of Alliance Française are to be congratulated; all other parents 
are urged to emulate their example. 

It is also to be hoped that the “Francophonie” crowd can devote some attention 
to French elocution in the country by school children in general, in addition 
to just the high literary quality of the production of a select few. A nation 
is judged first by how its members speak and behave in general before going on 
to consider how well a few dozen among them write. And how its members speak 
should not be judged by whether the speaker is slavishly imitating Creole or 
Franco-Mauritian pronunciation. Some of the best speakers of French live in 
Senegal or Morocco: admittedly they might regarded as “vulgar” by some in the 
Linguistics Department, but that is neither here nor there. Their views are 
totally irrelevant. The only way Mauritians of Asian origin can regain their 
lost pride and sense of self-respect in matters linguistic is to learn to 
speak French accurately as the Senegalese and the Moroccans do, with all the 
R’s and E’s correctly sounded. 

Dedication to teaching

The statistics regarding English Language are not encouraging, particularly 
when we know how badly many of our youngsters even with good scores at the 
School Certificate speak. I have no doubt that the level of written English 
attained by those who score a “C” in the subject is satisfactory. But I must 
stress again that in the real world people are judged first by how they speak 
and only much later by how they write. In cases where the duties of a post 
include writing, some employers, in addition to conducting oral interviews, 
submit candidates to written tests. In Mauritius it is more likely that 
candidates pass the written test well but fail the oral interview. 

If we wish to become the knowledge hub of the Indian Ocean, we must aim at 
having at least 75% of the rising generation speaking English correctly. To 
that end, it is essential that the teaching of oral English be improved in our 
secondary schools. One must assume that teachers of English themselves speak 
the language well. Therefore, what may have to be addressed is their 
dedication to teaching, their teaching methods, their teaching texts and 
possibly also the veto power wielded by hierarchic superiors and Ministry 
officials still stuck in Old Primary School English (OPSE). 

The classic method of teaching pronunciation is get all pupils in a class to 
read modern prose or sets of sentences aloud successively, paying special 
attention to word stress, sentence stress, sentence chunking, and intonation 
and rhythm. This used to be done at RCC in my time, except that not much 
attention was paid to mistakes in stress, which seriously limited the value of 
the exercise. Systematic training in the stress pattern of all common words 
and words with common endings should be undertaken to ensure they are 
accurately pronounced. There are a quite a few textbooks that provide such 
training, although one must admit they are not as common as those dealing with 
grammar, syntax and vocabulary; apparently the demand for such books is not 
great. But we are a special case; we are the only country with English as the 
official language to be bedevilled with a French-based Creole lingua franca 
which has far-reaching malignant effects on the learning of English, spoken 
and written. 

The pronunciation of French words is largely phonetic; that is to say, for 
most words, the pronunciation can be predicted accurately from the spelling. 
This is not the case in English, but unfortunately when reading, we tend to 
apply the principles of French pronunciation to English words, and afterwards 
while speaking we re-use those incorrect pronunciations. Additionally, when 
speaking or writing English, we tend to translate French expressions 
literally, and this results in incorrect English. This is why we need 
specially prepared textbooks to address our problems. Familiarity with English 
idiom and phrase can only come with wide reading and if possible, listening to 
BBC, CNN and other English-speaking radion and TV stations. This will also 
help with pronunciation which in any case must be actively taught and learnt. 
Frequent tests must be organised to check on whether pupils are learning the 
pronunciations accurately. Best of all would be exercises in transcription of 
sentences into phonetic script. It is a matter of great disappointment that 
the Ministry of Education has not yet adopted some version of the 
International Phonetic Script in language teaching in the country, right from 
kindergarten level. 

Reading sessions

I do not wish to teach my grandmother to suck eggs, but there may be teachers 
who are not aware that in other countries where English is not the mother 
tongue (like Mauritius) a system called “Extensive Reading Programme” has been 
found to yield rewarding results. Under this programme children are required 
to read aloud from graded readers (story booklets) for 20 minutes everyday at 
home. The booklets only use limited vocabulary, to make sure that reading does 
not have to be interrupted to check the meaning of words. Level 1 readers 
typically contain the first 300 simplest words. All the words of the level are 
first introduced in class, with their pronunciations, meanings, grammar and 
associated sentence structures; the children are also taught sentence chunking 
and intonation, and are made to read from one reader aloud in class to serve 
as model for the home assignment. All pupils will not be reading at the same 
speed; faster readers are encouraged to read more books, but every child is 
expected to read a minimum number of a dozen or so of them. In the initial 
stages, as a student completes one book, he or she is made to complete a short 
multiple-choice questionnaire with 6 to 10 questions about the main characters 
and events in the story just to ensure that the assignment is being carried 
out. The progress of the children in pronunciation and fluency is judged by 
loud reading sessions in class. 

In a continuing programme the teacher judges when to begin preparation for the 
vocabulary of the next level, while home reading activity within the current 
level goes on. When the vocabulary and structures of the next level have been 
introduced, the class can move on to that level of readers which will 
typically contain the first 600 words. This process goes on until readers 
containing the first 3000 words have been covered, after which all the 
participants are regarded as fully proficient readers and let loose in the 
library. The process may extend over three years. The implementation of the 
system assumes an abundant supply of graded readers. These are readily 
available from the well-known educational publishers. 

In Mauritius it is important to take one special precaution. Children must not 
be exposed to broadcasting stations where speakers do not pronounce well. Even 
our Hindi/Bhojpuri programme in the morning is messed up by one fellow who 
comes up every now and then with “Broadcasting round the clock, this is Radio 
Mauriiiiiitius.” It seems that he was never taught to distinguish 
between ‘sh*t’ and ‘sheet’ or between ‘p*ss’ and ‘piece’; nor, it appears, was 
the management of the Mauritius Broadcasting Corporation. In the meantime, all 
Indo-Mauritian children absorb this atrocious pronunciation of the name of our 
country. Can anybody explain to the Prime Minister that this is an intolerable 
state of affairs? 

While this does not strictly relate to the SC results of 2005, it is also 
important to ensure that every single Civil Servant and every single teacher 
should be able to speak English correctly. Prime Minister Lee Kwan Yew used to 
send Permanent Secretaries back to school to improve their English. Forget 
about those who are above forty-five: they can carry on with their Old Primary 
School English until they retire. But those who are below forty-five still 
have a lot of potential left in them, and can make a very effective 
contribution towards the economic development of our country. Special adult 
education classes in English, more easily accessible than those run by the 
British Council at their Centre in Rose Hill, should be organised for them, 
but the help of the British Council may have to be solicited. The most 
suitable course they could be made to follow would be those leading to 
appropriate levels of Cambridge examinations of English for Speakers of Other 
Language (ESOL). These start at an elementary level and go through 
intermediate levels up to the Certificate of Proficiency in English (CPE), the 
highest level. Every Civil Servant and every teacher other than teachers of 
English Language should have a pass with a satisfactory score at this 
examination, commonly known as the Cambridge CPE. 

Development of tourism 

To get back to the Statistics, one in five of those sitting for the School 
Certificate in 2005 also offered French Literature; two-thirds of them 
scored “C” or better. One in six offered Literature in English, and half of 
them scored “C” or better. Given the national weakness in English, one would 
have expected that schools had laid greater stress on Literature in English 
because of the additional opportunities it provides for the reading, writing 
and speaking of English. This ought to be made a compulsory subject for Form V 
by all schools. This used to be practice at RCC in my time. 

One in eight SC participants offered Hindi, and 84% of them scored “C” or 
better. Less than a hundred (91) offered Literature in Hindi, but again with a 
good score: 85% of them had “C” or better. These two subjects had the highest 
success rate of all subjects offered in the country. Not surprisingly the next 
highest was Urdu, with a success rate of 81%. Other languages offered, with 
the number of candidates indicated in brackets, were Arabic (142), Tamil 
(113), German (48), Spanish(42), Telugu (36), Marathi (31), Sanskrit (23) and 
Modern Std Chinese (17). For these languages the effort to prepare and sit for 
the papers is in itself quite praiseworthy, regardless of the result. However 
if the government really means business concerning its statements about the 
development of tourism, and the Cabinet issues an instruction to that effect, 
the Ministry of Education should provide facilities in selected regional 
secondary schools for teaching conversational German and Italian, and possibly 
also Spanish, Japanese and Mandarin, to enable those youngsters who wish to 
head for the hospitality industry to improve their qualifications. At this 
stage we are not expecting to be flooded with Arabic speaking tourists, but if 
that day arrives, facilities for conversational Arabic may also have to be 
made available. 

While on the subject of languages, we must draw attention to a recent notice 
issued by the Public Service Commission that required written and spoken 
English and French, and said that a third “international language” would be an 
advantage. In the context in which it was used, the term is meaningless. Were 
they looking for Esperanto, Ido or some similar artificial construction for 
international use, or perhaps for Bhojpuri (spoken in a dozen countries) or 
French-based Creole (spoken in half a dozen countries), or perhaps for 
Swahili, Hindi or Urdu (all spoken in numerous countries)? Or was there a 
hidden agenda in the use of the term? Why not use more precise terms like 
European, African or Asian languages? These three classes of languages cover 
all languages that could be of interest. When the PSC retains the right of 
interpretation of elements of qualifications, beyond the formula “alternatives 
acceptable to the Commission” which is meant to cater for cases when 
candidates come up with qualifications not widely known in Mauritius, 
prospective candidates are entitled to feel concerned.


Paramanund Soobarah
Soobarah.param at gmail.com 

(To be continued)