\" I used to like writing in Kreol but now I only use English \"

“I used to like writing in Kreol but now I only useEnglish”

– An exploratory study of language attitudes andexamination performance among primary andsecondary school pupils in the Seychelles.

Abstract

Due to a colonial legacy, numerous nations have beenstruggling to find the role of indigenous languages inofficialdom. In many such contexts, the ex-coloniallanguage/s (often English) still represent the path toeconomic success and prestige, while local vernaculars arelow in status and confined to less formal domains. In thisrespect, Creole languages have traditionally beenparticularly stigmatised.

In the following article, we will examine pupils’ (yearone to nine) language attitudes towards the three nationallanguages in the Seychelles – the mother tongue KreolSeselwa, and the two ex-colonial languages English andFrench – in two schools, and explore how these attitudescompare with the general performance in the nationalexaminations. The results show that pupils in primaryschool are positive towards Kreol in all four literacyskill domains, and that these positive attitudes aremirrored in the P6 national examinations. In contrast,there is a clear change in attitudes towards writing andreading in Kreol, once pupils enter the secondary level;secondary school pupils do seem not favour Kreol as awritten medium. We are also able to show that the positiveattitudes pupils in primary and secondary schools alsohold towards English are not reflected in exam results.English together with Mathematics are the two subjectswith the lowest national average grades in the P6examinations. Finally, our results indicate that girlshold more favourable attitudes towards all the keyliteracy skills in all the languages investigated, andthat these attitudes are mirrored in the performance inthe national examinations; girls outscore boys in all thelanguage subjects and the poor performance of boys,especially in written English, is of concern.

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We argue that the positive attitudes and results in Kreolin primary school should be built on in order to increasegeneral literacy in all language subjects, and thatextending the role of Kreol as an academic subject intosecondary levels may help in this pursuit and raiseliteracy levels as well as the general status of thelanguage. Further the findings have greater implicationsfor language-in-education policies in post-colonialcontexts, some of which are discussed below.

Key words: post-colonial, language attitudes, language policies, language-in-education planning, L2 medium of instruction

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1. IntroductionThe attitudes held towards different languages in any societyare not the random product of individuals’ personal aestheticpreferences. Much research has instead shown (Lippi-Green,1997; Gardner 1985; Bokhorst-Heng & Santos Caleon, 2009) thatattitudes are closely linked to the economicadvantages/disadvantages associated with the language inquestion, so-called instrumental attitudes related to the desire toreceive social-status recognition or profitable benefits(Gardner and Lambert, 1972). Language, however, is of coursenot only a question of economy. It is also an integral part ofour identity and culture. In this sense language attitudes arealso related to the desire to be integrated into a languagecommunity and culture, so-called integrative attitudes (Gardner andLambert, 1972). From a monolingual perspective, a mind-setrepresenting the norm in most Western societies according toCrystal (1987), there is no conflict between these two forcesshaping language attitudes. In fact they often complement andstrengthen each other. In many parts of the world, however, thesituation is more complex.

Due to a colonial legacy, numerous nations have been strugglingto chisel out the role of indigenous languages in officialdom.In many such contexts, ex-colonial language/s (often English)still represent a prerequisite for the path to economic successand prestige, while local vernaculars are confined to lessformal domains – the street, the market, conversations withfamily and friends – high in affective value, but hardly theway to go if you want to get on in life. In this respect fewlanguages have been as stigmatised as Creole languages.

Kreol Seselwa (hereafter simply referred to as Kreol), a Frenchlexifier-based Creole, which represents the mother tongue ofthe vast majority of the population in the Seychelles, is noexception. In spite of concerted efforts to raise its status inthe eighties and nineties, efforts which have also resulted inthe language today being a key component of the nationalidentity construct (see Nadal, 2014), it is still struggling tofind its role in education, financial spheres, in written mediaetc; while most Seychellois seem to be proud of Kreol,“colonial hangovers” make it hard for Seychellois to accept it

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as “one equal to other languages” (Mahoune, 2000). This is inline with folk-linguistic views held of Creoles around theworld. According to Frank (2007), it is still not uncommon tohear people refer to Creoles as not real languages, brokenFrench/English or patois – imperfect deviations or corruptions a ofprestigious ex-colonial language. According to the same authorand others (see Fleischmann 2008, for example), this isespecially true in the education sector, where these“nonstandard speech varieties” are often seen to “impedeprogress and upward mobility” (Frank, 2007:2). It is reasonableto assume, that educators’ attitudes towards languagesinfluence the pupils’ attitudes, and in extension the lattergroups’ interest and motivation to perform in differentlanguage subjects.

In the following article, we will examine pupils’ (year one tonine) language attitudes towards the three national languages,Kreol, English and French, in two schools in the Seychelles,and explore how these attitudes compare with the generalperformance in the national examinations (in primary six (P6)and secondary three (S3)). We will also discuss theimplications of our findings on language-in-education andgeneral language policies.

1.1 Theoretical framework and previous research

Dörnyei (2003:4) makes a distinction between language learningfrom other school subjects. More so than any other subject, hesees language learning as “socially and culturally bound” and a“deeply social event”, where issues such as multiculturalism,language globalization, language contact, and power relationsbetween different ethnolinguistic groups all play a part. Thereare, of course strong arguments that all learning is sociallyand culturally bounded forms of languaging, and this becomesparticularly apparent in contexts where ex-colonial languagesare used as mediums of instructions in education. Using Englishas medium of instruction in a post-colonial context, forexample, often also entails adopting culturally boundedknowledge systems based on Western scientific norms. Englishthus becomes synonymous with ‘true knowledge’ (as opposed toindigenous ‘beliefs’) and an essential component of ‘progress’.In these contexts, instrumental and integrative motivationalforces that have their origin in the past colonial structures,

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and which have advantaged the middle class elite, will affectattitudes of the general population towards different languagesin educational contexts.

According to Van der Walt (2004), for example, attitude surveysthat show instrumental motivation for the learning of Englishare often used in Africa to justify policies for the use ofEnglish as a language of learning and teaching. Ager (2001:Chapter 6) also points to the power of integrative motivationin these contexts. In many post-colonial contexts English isseen as the gateway to membership of a powerful educated eliteof English speakers, undermining the position of indigenouslanguages. The fact that such systems also exclude largeproportions of the population (see Garrouste, 2011, forexample) and thereby indirectly hinders development is oftenoverseen.

Consequently, there is often general distrust towards the useof indigenous languages in education. Investigating the issueof English-medium vs. vernacular instruction in Ghana, Mfum-Mensah (2005:80), for example, found that a majority of thestudy participants expressed the view that using the vernacularas an instructional medium was “a subtle strategy employed bythe elite to perpetuate the communities’ marginalization frommainstream society”. This suspicion is not unfounded; it is awell-documented phenomenon in many post-colonial contexts thatwhile policymakers publicly agree with, and/or propagate andimplement language policies that strengthen the role ofvernaculars in education and officialdom, the same group willsubvert the very same policies by sending their own children toprivate, elite English medium of instruction schools (Laitin1992:43). At the same time, various studies from around theworld – the Seychelles (Bickerton: 1990); Mauritius (Sauzier-Uchida, 2009); the Maldives (Mohamed, 2013); and Haiti(Hebblethwaite, 2012), for example – have shown that givinglocal languages a more prominent role in education helps toimprove the learning situation for the masses, therebydecreasing inequity, and raising the knowledge capital of anation.

“The language question” in post-colonial contexts is thus anintricate matter, and striking the right balance between therole of indigenous languages and the need for ex-colonial

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languages in order to ensure international opportunities forthe population, is an ongoing challenge (see Hamid et al, 2014for a more thorough account). Applying Spolsky’s (2004) “threecomponent model of language policy” to this type of languagepolicy making context reveals some of the complexitiesinvolved. According Spolsky, language policy making has threecomponents: language practices – the languages that a speechcommunity selects as parts of its linguistic repertoire and theways in which these are used; language beliefs or ideology – thebeliefs the speech community has about languages and their use;and specific efforts made to modify or influence the practices ofthe speech community. In Creole contexts language practices inofficial contexts are often entirely based on the past colonialstructures and changing these is a mammoth task involvingenormous practical and economic efforts. This type of work isoften made more difficult by deeply rooted negative languagebeliefs about Creole languages. A commonly held belief, forexample, is that Creole languages do not have the requisiteterminology to deal with the world of (western) science,mathematics, or technology, an obvious myth since all humanlanguages are able to adapt to changes in society and evolveways of describing new knowledge paradigms. These two aspects,i.e. deeply ingrained language practices based on colonialstructures and negative beliefs towards the indigenouslanguage, thus mean that the specific efforts needed to changelanguage practice and beliefs will require massive efforts ofprestige and image planning (Liddicoat, 2013). Key efforts inlanguage-in-education planning are particularly important herein order to avoid recessive cycle language developments, situationswhere the lack of promotion of a local language in educationgives fuel to those that claim that the language is unfit forformal purposes, thereby further diminishing its role,motivating added restrictions to the domains where it is used,ultimately, leaving it in a very weak position, at worst as anoral vernacular (see Bossong, 1980). On the other hand, thereare plentiful examples of language planning which have led toso-called expansive cycles, where the active use of a language inall domains, including education, the media, science andtechnology, has resulted in the long-term survival and growthof a language. The efforts made to revitalize English in the15th-17th century following the long period of stagnation afterthe Norman invasion is only one example.

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1.2 Background – the Seychelles context

Seychelles became a British colony in 1815, prior to which itwas governed by the French. By this time, Kreol Seselwa, aFrench-based Creole closely related to the Creoles of Mauritiusand Rodriguez, had become firmly established as the language ofevery-day communication. As a marginal colony of littleimportance, however, the Seychelles were largely left to theirown devices; the British presence was mainly restricted to theadministrative sphere, where English also became the officiallanguage. French kept its role in religious practice and highculture, areas controlled by the francophone elite of colonialdescent, the “white bourgeoisie”, or the so-called Grands Blancs(Bollée 1993:88). Since schools were mainly run by the Church,French was also the medium of instruction in education untilthe1940s. After moves to make education more secular, thechurch-owned schools were finally replaced by more formal andorganized arrangements, based on the English system andlanguage in 1947 (Fleischmann 2008: 74).

During the entire colonial period, Kreol remained a low statuslanguage, and only existed in its spoken form, as illustratedby Mrs. Elva Gedeon, Senior Curriculum Development officer atthe Ministry of Education: ”Creole, it was not even consideredas a language” (personal communication, recorded interview, 9November 2012). It was confined to informal discourse andcompletely banned from schools: “Creole was out of thequestion. We were punished if we spoke Creole in class”(Gedeon, 2012). Such punishments could include “writing lines”,formal rituals designed to bring ridicule to the “offender”,and even corporal punishment (see also Fleischmann, 2008:141).The language situation in the Seychelles during this historicalperiod is a direct reflection the pre-independence powerstructures on the islands: the British were the formaladministrative rulers, while the Grand Blancs still retainedconsiderable economic power and influence. A prerequisite foraccess to positions of power (within the fields ofadministration, law, religion and education, for example) amongthe general Kreol-speaking population (94 per cent according toMoumou (2004: 46)) was mastery of English, and to a lesserextent French.

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With independence in 1976, and the subsequent coup d’état in1977, the status of Kreol improved, and it began its journeytowards becoming an official language with a role inadministration, culture and education. This was by no means aneasy undertaking. There was no written standard, noorthography, no formalised grammar and no literature written inKreol. Further, the elevation of Kreol to a formal language wasnot given, even among its native speakers. According to D’Offay(1980: 268), “The dominant group, […], had managed to persuadethe Creole-speakers that their ‘speech’ was so inferior instatus as to be a ‘non-language’ […]”. The implementation ofKreol as a medium of instruction and a school subject in itsown right in education thus involved a marathon effort wheregrammar descriptions, orthography and spelling had to be agreedupon, learning materials had to be constructed and teachers hadto be trained (see Fleischmann 2008: 58-67 for further detailsof this process). In January 1982 Seychelles, however, becamethe first Creole-speaking nation in the world to implement aCreole language as a medium of instruction in education. TheSeychelles has since been joined by three other nations: Haiti,the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba, but the majority of thefifty or so Creole-speaking nations in the world still do notrecognise their languages’ role in education (Siegel, 2005).There were other language reforms during the eighties andnineties that favoured Kreol’s official role in society. In1981, for example, Kreol became the first national languagebefore English, and in 1993 a trilingual language policy waswritten into the National Constitution whereby Kreol was givenequal status to English and French (see Nadal, 2014).

In spite of these initial efforts to promote Kreol’s role ineducation and elsewhere, there are indications that itsposition has suffered setbacks in recent years. After concernswere raised in the Language Policy Review Committee (LPRC)report in 1994, Kreol’s role as medium of instruction wasreduced from the first four to the first two years of schoolingin 1996. One of the motivations for this, according to Gedeon(personal communication 2012), was that policy makers arguedthat with increased exposure to English in popular media(television for example), children were better equipped tohandle an earlier switch to English as medium of instruction.This type of argument is a reflection of the continued lowstatus of Kreol in the Seychelles, and adds further strength to

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Siegel’s claims that programmes of literacy in Pidgeons andCreoles in post-colonial countries are transitional and “not anend in itself but rather […] a means of acquiring literacy inthe European official language(s), which are used for highereducation and government […]” (2005:149). Kreol is not studiedbeyond the primary level and confined to non-academic subjects.According to Nadal (2014: 42) this situation has profoundrepercussions since pre-service primary teachers who train forteaching Kreol at primary level themselves have very limitedknowledge of written Kreol “as they have been completely cutoff from the language during the five years of their secondaryschooling”.

Today, Kreol remains the medium of instruction during Key Stage1 (see Figure 1 below), after which it is replaced by English.Kreol then remains a school subject during Key Stages 2 and 3after which it is totally abandoned in the system as anacademic subject. However, according to the National CurriculumFramework (Ministry of Education 2013:16) any of “the threenational languages can also be used as support languages in theteaching of particular subjects, depending on the context andcircumstances of students, teachers and schools, to ensure amaximum level of understanding by all learners”. This includesKreol, but based on our observations and experiences thisrarely seems to be the case (see Deutschmann, 2014).

Figure 1. Key Stages in the Seychelles educational system (Ministry of Education,2013)

English also remains the main language of administration, ineconomic transactions and in the tourism industry, and there

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are indications that this development is further spurred on byglobal economic pressures (see Laversuch 2008). Similarly, theuse of Kreol in written media is limited to a “symbolicalpresence”, […] restricted to reporting about events of lowernews value” according to Nadal (2014: 43). Two areas where therole of Kreol in the Seychelles excels are in audio-visualmedia “with the language being used without any complexwhatsoever in almost every locally-produced TV programme”(Nadal 2014:43) and in politics where it is the workinglanguage of the parliament.

2. The Study 2.1 Aims

The aim of this study is to explore attitudes to the threelanguage subjects, Kreol, English and French, among pupils inprimary and secondary schools in the Seychelles. Theselanguages also represent the official national languages in theNational Constitution. Our initial hypothesis is that Englishwill be viewed particularly favourably since it is also themain medium of instruction and the language that carries thehighest prestige in official contexts in the Seychelles. We arealso interested in how pupils perform in the three languagesubjects and aim to compare attitudes to performance in theNational examinations with the initial hypothesis that positiveattitudes towards a language/subject also increases motivationand in extension performance.

2.2 Method

Most of the data was collected in two schools, one primary andone secondary school, in the Seychelles during late autumn2013. Two parallel classes from each year were chosen at randomin order to get a representative sample and all in all, 261pupils from the primary school and 141 pupils from thesecondary school were included in the study according to thedistribution in Table 1 below.

Table 1. Distribution of pupils included in the study in relation to classes and gender(P=primary and S=Secondary)

Class P1 P2 P3 P4 P5 P6 S1 S2 S3 TotalGirls 22 23 22 20 26 16 24 22 25 200

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(47%) (47%) (52%) (47%) (59%) (44%) (51%) (48%) (52%) (50%)Boys 25

(53%)26

(53%)20

(48%)23

(53%)18

(41%)20

(56%)23

(49%)24

(52%)23

(48%)202(50%)

Total 47(100%)

49(100%)

42(100%)

43(100%)

44(100%)

36(100%)

47(100%)

46(100%)

48(100%)

402(100%)

Pupils were given a questionnaire survey – a so-called ‘smileyquestionnaire’ – where they were asked to answer a set of sixquestions about their attitudes to the subjects Kreol, Englishand French. There were two general questions and four questionsrelated to each specific literacy skill in the language (oral,aural, reading and writing). Information about the pupils’gender was also included in the survey:

1. Do you like learning language X this year?2. How difficult is language X this year?3. Do you like speaking language X this year?4. Do you like listening to language X this year?5. Do you like reading in language X this year?6. Do you like writing in language X this year?

The questionnaire was constructed in such a way that pupilscould choose one of five alternatives on a five point Likertscale in response to the questions. These alternatives wereillustrated with ‘smiley faces’ (sad, neutral and happy) thatsymbolised the different values on a Likert scale. For example,two sad faces (see Figure 2. below) represented the value ofone on the Likert scale. There were also illustrations of theparticular language skill in question to facilitatecomprehension. This was particularly relevant for the youngerpupils.

Figure 2. Example of question format in ’Smiley questionnaire’.

Prior to distributing the questionnaires the researchersexplained the content and purpose of the survey in Kreol, and

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gave careful instructions on how to fill it in. The researcherswere also present during the answering process in order toassist pupils who had questions about the content. Note that weasked class teachers to leave the room during this process sothat pupils would free to express their opinions anonymously.Note also that the surveys used in the secondary school classes(S1-S3) were slightly modified and did not include questions ongeneral attitudes towards the school subject Kreol since thislanguage ceases to be part of the curriculum after P6. Thequestionnaires were then collected and average values (1-5)were calculated for each question based on the sum of theindividual responses.

In the second part of this study, we look at the examinationsresults from the 2013 national examinations (Ministry ofEducation, 2013). Here we use the averages from the P6 cohort(1303 pupils) in Kreol, English and French and the S3 cohort(915 pupils) in English and French. We also break down theresults from the P6 examinations into the different sub-tests(listening comprehension, reading comprehension, and writing)and examine gender differences in grade distributions in the P6examinations. This part of the study is limited to the P6cohort as such data was unfortunately not available for the S3examinations.

Note that we have not attempted to conduct any statisticalanalysis to show correlation between language attitudes andperformance. The primary reason for this is that the data setsdo not match: the entire national cohorts are used for the examresults, while only two classes are used in the attitudesurvey. Further, the data generated from a Likert scale surveyare such that they cannot be used in a Spearman RankCorrelation Test; this type of data simply contains too many‘joint ranks’ (ten pupils in a class scoring five for aparticular question, for example) to make an analysismeaningful. Our comparison between the two data sets shouldthus be seen as entirely exploratory, revealing potential areasfor further research.

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2.2 Results

2.2.1 Attitudes and performance in the subjects of Kreol, English and French

In this section we first examine the results from our attitude survey and then explore how our results compare to performance in the P6 and S3 national examinations of 2013 in these subjects.

Attitude survey results

In response to the first general question “Do you like learninglanguage X this year?”, we found that pupils were most positivetowards Kreol during the time it remains a subject in school (P1-P6). Apart from the pupils in primary 1, all pupils were almost equally positive towards English. French, however, is less favoured, gradually losing in popularity as the pupils progress through the system (see Figure 3. below – note that the “Y” axis in all the figures below represent the pupils average responses on the five-grade Likert scale where five represents a very positive response and one a very negative response).

Figure 3. Average responses to the question “Do you like learning language X this year?”. Note that this question did not figure in S1-S3 for Kreol since it is no longer a school subject in Key Stage 4.

In response to the second general question “How difficult is language X this year?”, we found that Kreol was considered the

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easiest subject in school followed by French in Key Stage 1 (P1and P2), while English was viewed as most difficult in this keystage. This relationship, however, changes in Key Stage 2, after P3. After Key Stage 1, French remains the language subject perceived as the most difficult throughout the study (see Figure 4. below).

Figure 4. Average responses to the question “How difficult is language X this year?”. 5=very easy. Note that this question did not figure in S1-S3 for Kreol since it is no longer a school subject in Key Stage 4.

We now turn our attention to the attitudes towards the four language skills. In response to oral aspects of the languages, pupils were most positive towards Kreol, followed by English. French was least favoured and this tendency seems to increase over the years (see Figure 5.).

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Figure 5. Average responses to the question “Do you like speaking language X?”.

In response to aural aspects of the languages, the pupils were again most positive towards Kreol in all key stages, closely followed by English. French was only marginally less favoured during primary school, but more negative attitudes prevailed among the secondary school pupils (see Figure 6. below).

Figure 6. Average responses to the question “Do you like listening to language X?”.

The results for the attitudes towards written skills were notably different from the attitudes towards oral and aural

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aspects of the languages. Here pupils were very favourable towards Kreol in the primary classes, but there was a substantial drop in attitudes amongst secondary school pupils. Pupils remained positive towards English, while writing in French was generally disfavoured (see Figure 7. below). Overallpupils were less positive to writing than the oral and aural aspects of the languages. The results for reading roughly mirror those for writing (see Figure 8. below).

Figure 7. Average responses to the question “Do you like writing in language X?”.

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Figure 8. Average responses to the question “Do you like reading in language X?”.

Exam Results

Here we look at the exam results of the P6 and S3 nationalexaminations in the language subjects. We also make anexploratory comparison of exam performance with the pupils’attitudes towards the subjects in question. Important to notehere, however, is that this comparison is speculative since thedata sets we are looking at do not match – the entire nationalcohort is used for the exam results and only a few selectedclasses were investigated in the attitude survey.

In some respects the overall results from the nationalexaminations mirror the attitudes towards the subjects that wefound in our survey. Kreol, for example, was the subjectevaluated most favourably among the P6 pupils and it was alsothe language subject that the 2013 P6 cohort performed best in(see Figure 9 below). Similarly English was generally favouredover French among the S3 pupils and this is also mirrored inthe examinations results, where the S3 cohort performs betterin English than French. A rather surprising result is the poorperformance in English among the P6 cohort, this in spite ofthe fact that most pupils seem very positive towards thesubject. It is impossible to draw any firm conclusions from ourdata, but the observed discrepancy between attitudes andperformance is an area that merits further research. Theperformance in French among the P6 pupils is also somewhatsurprising. In spite of relatively negative attitudes towardsthe subject, pupils seem to perform relatively well in theFrench examinations.

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Figure 9. Average exam results P6 and S3 - 2013.

We now turn our attention to the performance in the differentsub-parts of the P6 examinations (see Figure 10 below). Herethe general findings from our attitude survey are at leastpartly mirrored in the exam results. The P6 pupils weregenerally more negative towards reading and writing than oraland aural aspects of the language subjects, and this isreflected in the exam results, where pupils perform much betterin the listening skills papers. Note that there are no oralproficiency tests in P6 since it is they are too expensive toadminister at this stage (individual oral test require a lot ofresources). Here, Kreol stands out with a national average of77 per cent. The results for the writing and reading papers areless positive, and the low results in English are particularlyworrying given that it is the medium of instruction in school.In spite of reasonably positive attitudes towards reading andwriting in English pupils arguably find these aspects of thelanguage more challenging than they would like to admit. Theperformance in Kreol, especially in the reading paper, ishowever very encouraging.

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Figure 10. Results in different papers –P6.

2.2.2 Gender distributions in attitudes and in the P6 exam results

In this section we look at gender differences in attitudes andcompare these to gender differences in the P6 nationalexaminations. The gender issue is of particular interest inthis context since according to the SAQMEC report (Hungi &Thuki, 2010:85) Seychelles has the greatest gender differencesin reading abilities of all the investigated nations with girlsgreatly outperforming boys.

The gender differences in attitudes towards Kreol were thesmallest of the investigated languages (see Figure 11 below).Boys did find the subject more challenging than girls, but wereonly marginally less positive to the four key skills. Theseattitudes were at least partly mirrored in the national examresults (see Figure 12 below) where boys scored an average of52 per cent and girls 65 per cent, but where the gradedistribution was such that relatively few boys failed the exam(78 in all).

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Figure 11. Gender differences in attitudes towards Kreol P1-P6.

Figure 12. Gender differences in grade distribution – Kreol P6. Boys overall grade average = 52% and girls = 65%. Note that x-axis indicates the number of pupils in the2013 cohort who received a particular grade.

There were large differences in attitudes towards English between the genders (see Figure 13 below). Generally boys foundthe subject more difficult and were more negative to different key skills involved in the subject – particularly writing. These gender differences in attitudes are mirrored in the

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national exam results, where the boys’ average grade in Englishwas a mere 35 per cent compared to the girls’ 46 per cent. Further, a large group of boys (176 in all) failed the subject altogether. The equivalent figure for girls was 46 (see Figure 14 below)

Figure 13. Gender differences in attitudes towards English P1-P6.

Figure 14. Gender differences in grade distribution – English P6. Boys overall grade average = 35% and girls = 46%.

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The greatest gender differences in attitudes were observed in French (see Figure 15 below). Generally boys found the subject more difficult and were more negative to the different key skills – particularly writing but less so with reference to listening skills. These gender differences in attitudes are also mirrored in the national exam results, where the difference in performance between boys and girls was the greatest of the observed subjects (see Figure 16 below): boys averaged 46 per cent and girls 62 per cent. Worth noting, however, is that relatively few boys failed the exam in French (66 in all).

Figure 15. Gender differences in attitudes towards French P1-P6.

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Figure 16. Gender differences in grade distribution – French P6. Boys overall grade average = 46% and girls = 62%.

2.2.3 Summary of results

The results clearly show that pupils are very positive towardsKreol on the whole. These attitudes are particularly noticeablein the primary classes where Kreol is favoured over English andFrench in all four literacy skill domains. These positiveattitudes are mirrored in the P6 national examinations whereKreol is the subject pupils perform the best of all thesubjects tested including Maths, the Social Sciences etc. Inour survey, there is a clear change in attitudes towardswriting and reading in Kreol once pupils enter the secondarylevel, however. They do not seem to be as positive to readingand writing in Kreol as pupils are at primary level. One boy inS3 we spoke to gave the following answer to the question ofwhat language he favoured in formal and informal writing: “Iused to like writing in Kreol but now I only use English”. Heclaimed that all his written communication, including informalcommunication such as text messages and comments on Facebooketc. were done in English and that the same applied to most ofhis friends. Given the fact that Kreol ceases to be an academicsubject after P6 and that all tasks, examinations etc. have tobe communicated in English at secondary level, it is hardlysurprising that the pupils’ attitudes towards written Kreolchange for the negative once they enter higher levels of theeducation system. This may simply be a reflection of the

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signals that the system indirectly is sending out – “English isthe written medium to use in adult contexts”.

It is also interesting to see how the attitudes towards Englishchange from Key Stage One in the education system, when Kreolis the medium of instruction (P1-P2), to key stages 2-4 (P3-S3)when English is the medium of instruction. In our study,children in the former key stage generally held less favourableattitudes towards English compared to Kreol and French. AfterKey Stage 1 when English becomes the medium of instruction,pupils generally held positive attitudes towards the subject,although writing seemed to be slightly less favoured. The P6national exam results, however, show that contrary to what onewould expect based on the attitude survey, pupils perform verybadly in English. Apart from Mathematics, it is in fact thesubject that shows the lowest mean grade (40 per cent) in thenational examinations, and the low average grades in thereading and writing parts of the exam were particularlyalarming. Somehow pupils seem to find English more challengingthan they care to admit, especially the written aspects of thelanguage. This is a cause of great concern, given that Englishis the medium of instruction in most other subjects in thecurriculum from P3 onwards.

What is slightly surprising are the relatively less positiveattitudes held towards French in our study. Given the fact thatKreol Seselwa is based on French vocabulary, one could arguablyexpect pupils to find French easier/more interesting thanEnglish, but this is not reflected in the attitude survey. Suchnegative attitudes towards French among the Seychellois havebeen found in other studies (see Fleischmann 2008:117-119, forexample), but we have no obvious explanations for thephenomenon and the question merits further research. Inexaminations, however, pupils do relatively well in French andthere seems to be a mismatch between attitudes and performance.

In the final section of our results we examine genderdifferences in attitudes and exam results in the languagesubjects. The results show that girls clearly hold morefavourable attitudes towards all the key literacy skills in allthe languages, and these attitudes are reflected in theperformance in the national examinations; girls outscore boysin all the language subjects and the poor performance of boys,

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especially in English, is worrying. On the one hand, this is aninternational trend, where girls are seen to value languagecompetences, whereas boys prefer the “hard sciences”:mathematics, natural sciences, life sciences, etc.. In the casecase of the Seychelles, and many other post-colonial contextsthe underperformance of boys in English also leads tounderperformance in all subjects taught through the medium ofEnglish, something that is reflected in the national examswhere girls outscore boys in ALL subjects.

3. Discussion Some findings from our study stand out and may haveimplications for future language-in-education policies in theSeychelles and elsewhere. Firstly, it is apparent thatSeychellois children in primary school are very positivetowards their mother tongue and that this positive attitude isreflected in exam results. This knowledge resource is arguablynot being exploited to its full potential in the currentsystem. There is much evidence that literacy skills in the L1and in the L2 interplay (Bernhardt & Kamil 1995; Bernhardt,2005; Koda, 2005, 2007), and further building on the positiveattitudes/learning outcomes in Kreol in primary school, by forexample developing the subject in secondary school, may wellaffect literacy in English and French positively too. Further,we suggest that keeping Kreol as a subject up into thesecondary years would provide an arena for local culturalexpressions, in literature, for example. As things stand today,much of the content in subjects such as the sciences, history,geography etc. in the secondary school system is based oncurricula and course literature produced for an internationalaudience (often Western). This is hardly surprising since thesecondary school education system is geared towards the finalIGCSE (International General Certificate in SecondaryEducation) examinations, which are both constructed and markedin Cambridge, England. In this system there is little room forthe local context. Keeping Kreol as a subject could at leastpartly counter-balance this.

Secondly, it is evident from our results that attitudes towardsKreol as a written medium become far more negative once it isabandoned as a school subject. This has serious implications

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for the status of Kreol in the Seychelles. If the developmentof more advanced literacy skills in Kreol are not supported inthe education system, this may well lead to a recessive cycleeffect (cf. Bossong 1980) that gradually erodes the role ofKreol into becoming a mere spoken vernacular. Not only doesthis impair recruitment of future teachers with adequate skillsto teach the language in primary schools, as pointed out byNadal (2014: 43), it also has implications for written Kreol inmedia such as newspapers, in literature etc. Keeping Kreol as asubject in secondary school would raise its status and alsoclear the ground for introducing it at higher levels ofeducation such as university.

Thirdly, there are indications that limited English skillsamong pupils, particularly in writing and reading as evidencedfrom the P6 national examinations, may be somewhat obscured bytheir positive attitudes to the subject. It is of concern thatso many pupils appear to have difficulties in the language thatis the medium of instruction from P3 onwards, and although itwould be unrealistic to propagate a radical change of the roleof English in the current system, more should perhaps be doneto identify and support pupils with difficulties. This couldwell involve increasing the importance of Kreol as language ofsupport in schools as well as other efforts, such as a greaterfocus on language issues in the teacher training programs ofall teacher categories (see Deutschmann & Zelime, 2014).

Finally, the gender differences in language attitudes andperformance are of great concern. Many boys are not faring wellin the current system, and especially among this group the useof Kreol as a support language is motivated. Today there arelarge groups of unqualified, unemployed males in the Seychellesand many speak of a “masculinity crisis”. According to theAfrican Development Bank resort of 2009:

“Seychelles is one of the best examples of a country wherewomen have met most of their basic needs and have achievedalmost full practical empowerment in the public sphere, withconstitutional and equal rights to work, education, health,vote, land ownership and inheritance. In fact, it can be saidthat Seychelles is a country where women and girls have manyadvantages over men and boys. […] Gender gaps are perhapsparticularly glaring in the education sector” (AfricanDevelopment Bank Report, 2009:4)

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In the same report it is claimed that “men interpretedthemselves as helpless victims whose power had been eroded bywomen, government and society.” (African Development BankReport, 2009:v). Among the middle classes such sentiments wereless frequent, however. There are strong indications that thecurrent system contributes to inequity in other areas too.Although social class was not investigated in this study,SAQMEC reports Seychelles as a nation with one of the largestdifferences in reading scores between rich and poor pupils ofin the region, a direct result of the degree of exposure toEnglish in the home environment (Hungi & Thuki, 2010:81). It istempting (but at this stage unfounded) to speculate thateffects of inequity resulting from current policies may not beentirely unintentional. After all, the policy makers arethemselves products of the current system and they havethemselves benefitted from it.

All of the above illustrate a general dilemma in post-colonialcontexts: in the bid to quality assure education in accordanceto international standards, and to prepare for engagement in aninternational community, systems such as the IGCSE exams areadopted. While such policies do in fact open up internationalopportunities for a limited group, they also shut the door forlarge sections of the population who are not able to negotiatethe linguistic hurdles. What is more such policies also come ata cost – the hindrance of indigenous languages and cultures todevelop and mature into adulthood. There is a case forquestioning the logical arguments presented by educationalauthorities as to why indigenous languages are not maintainedthroughout schooling system. Is it really a case of limitedresources resulting in the prioritization of opening up to‘world of opportunities’? Or may it be that oldhabits/structures die hard, structures where being more “highlyeducated” still is associated with proficiency in “non-local”languages?

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