{"id":220857,"date":"2022-03-30T22:45:29","date_gmt":"2022-03-30T20:45:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/bilingual-schooling-can-boost-literacy-but-in-cote-divoire-its-not-as-clear-cut\/"},"modified":"2022-03-30T22:45:29","modified_gmt":"2022-03-30T20:45:29","slug":"bilingual-schooling-can-boost-literacy-but-in-cote-divoire-its-not-as-clear-cut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/bilingual-schooling-can-boost-literacy-but-in-cote-divoire-its-not-as-clear-cut\/","title":{"rendered":"Bilingual schooling can boost literacy – but in C\u00f4te d\u2019Ivoire it’s not as clear cut"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In countries where more than one language is spoken, education systems are challenged with choosing which language to use in schools. Learning in a new language is an especially difficult task for a child. Instead, learning in a language a child already speaks may better support schooling and literacy outcomes.<\/p>\n

A common approach in multilingual communities is bilingual education, where instruction occurs in both a mother tongue and an official language. There is abundant evidence that early experience with two languages, be it at home with bilingual family members or at school in a bilingual education programme, may benefit children\u2019s spoken language skills. These skills \u2013 vocabulary and the awareness of the sounds of language \u2013 predict children\u2019s early reading abilities. This evidence has been found in sub-Saharan Africa<\/a> and beyond<\/a>.<\/p>\n

However, we wanted to know more about how home and school language environments support skilled reading in multilingual communities with low literacy rates, such as in rural C\u00f4te d\u2019Ivoire. Our aim was to understand whether bilingual home and school environments may benefit children\u2019s language and reading skills in this context. We also wanted to understand what factors might influence literacy outcomes in such contexts.<\/p>\n

We conducted research<\/a> in C\u00f4te d\u2019Ivoire in 2016 to 2018. There are over 70<\/a> languages spoken in C\u00f4te d\u2019Ivoire, yet French remains the language of instruction in most primary school classrooms. The outcomes are poor: only 53%<\/a> of young people between the ages of 15 and 24 are literate. We measured children\u2019s language and reading skills in both their mother tongue and in French, and compared outcomes between children attending a French-only or bilingual school, who were growing up in either monolingual or bilingual homes. <\/p>\n

We found, as expected, that children from bilingual homes had better language and reading skills than their monolingual peers. But unexpectedly, children at French-only schools did even better at language and reading tasks. The reason seemed to be the resources available at French-language schools. The implication is that efforts to use multiple languages in education also need to be supported by better resources like teacher training and classroom materials in mother tongue languages. <\/p>\n

The research<\/h2>\n

Most rural households in C\u00f4te d\u2019Ivoire don\u2019t speak French, so many children are first exposed to the French language when they start school. This mismatch between the language spoken at home and the language spoken at school may contribute to the fact that 10%<\/a> of children repeat grades, only 73%<\/a> of children remain in school through the end of primary, and only 53%<\/a> of those aged 15 to 24 are literate.<\/p>\n

C\u00f4te d\u2019Ivoire initiated a national-scale programme called Projet \u00c9cole Int\u00e9gr\u00e9e in 2001, featuring classroom instruction in a mother tongue language alongside French. Our research team<\/a> was interested in how children\u2019s spoken language skills and reading skills differed according to home and school situations in rural, multilingual communities with low literacy rates. <\/p>\n

We looked at differences between:<\/p>\n