The Editor, Sir:

Just challenging those who keep harping on the fact that our Jamaican Patois is difficult to read, and those others wringing their hands over the high illiteracy statistics. Follow me carefully: Consider the fact that children communicate in some language form before, somewhere around age six, they begin to learn the rules to read or write that same language through exercises where they also listen and communicate with others.

If this language is not English, then English is not the first language or native tongue of these children. The most effective method of teaching them English is for it to be taught as a second language. This may be where the Jamaican education system makes its first error. Do the current methodologies employed in teaching English from Grade 1 take into consideration that it may not be the native language of the majority of Jamaican children?

Practise speaking English

Forty years ago (and beyond) in Jamaica, it was not difficult to hear and practise speaking English. The rules that govern the language were formally taught, and students had to learn English grammar by rote for endless hours, in much the same manner as they had to recite their multiplication tables. They came to know that 9 times 9 equalled 81, not from calculating it in their heads, but from tedious repetition. They also knew without a doubt that "I were" wouldn't cut it with their English teacher, unless it was preceded by "if" and used in the subjunctive mood.

I should add that at the time, most of those who taught English, were native speakers of the language, which was the language of instruction for other subjects as well.

'Patwa' lifestyle

Many of Jamaica's children today, however, spend the first six years of their life immersed in 'patwa', but when they hit school, they are taught 'English', this new language they neither hear nor speak. They are not formally taught the rules that govern this new language, since the presumption is that this is their native tongue, and in many cases their tutors are more comfortable speaking the 'patwa' than the English. This places the learner at a distinct disadvantage in acquiring the new language.

They are expected to learn and practise English from teachers who don't speak it, from homes where it is never spoken, from music which is always in their familiar tongue. How will they experience any immersion in English? Part of learning a living language for anyone who is not gifted in this area, is to practise it.

We will continue to see low passes in English language until we acknowledge that the majority of the population comprises non-native speakers who should be taught English as a second language.

I am, etc.,

KADENE PORTER

kadene26@hotmail.com