Canadian Journal for New Scholars in Education (Dec 2022)
Towards a Plurilingual Pedagogy in Foreign Language Education in an Anglophone Creole Context
Abstract
This article proposes a plurilingual pedagogical approach, which encompasses the use of the L1 (Jamaican Creole), the L2 (Standard Jamaican English), and the target language (e.g., Spanish) for the teaching of foreign languages in Jamaica. I discuss the problem of the dominant use of English in foreign language classrooms to the exclusion of Jamaican Creole and I argue that the use of plurilingual strategies and the introduction of plurilingual textbooks unique to the Jamaican context will foster greater proficiency and fluidity across all three languages. I also propose the need for teacher training in plurilingual pedagogy in order to improve language awareness in the teachers themselves so that they can model plurilingual strategies for students.