Affiliation:
1. The University of the West Indies, Open Campus, Barbados
Abstract
This study sought to investigate the perceptions of Barbadian primary school teachers regarding the use of home language (HL) in the acquisition of Standard English (SE). To this end, 42 teachers completed questionnaires. The data revealed that teachers (87%) considered SE as the language of prestige, education, commerce, and upward mobility. Conversely, teachers (89%) agreed that there was a place for HL in the SE classroom. However, teachers held contradictory views on whether HL hinders the acquisition of SE. The data also indicated that teachers use HL in the SE classroom to help students grasp and understand difficult concepts, to act as a bridge between the two languages, for translation, and to facilitate code-switching. In contrast, some teachers believed that HL limits the SE vocabulary, contradicts SE rules, and hinders SE speech and writing. These findings are significant to consider when examining HL use in the SE classroom.
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