Today, I am posting the chapter entitled
"Language at GAU Prep school"
The educational language at GAU Prep school is English. It is logical to encourage students to use it in their classroom, except during French or Turkish lessons where they should be encouraged to make efforts to speak the target language. Actually students do not need to be encouraged to speak English when English is the language of the school. They learn themselves very quickly what great advantage it would for them to speak English, in particular to be able to talk with non Turkish-speaking students and teachers. During break time, students naturally speak English to friends with whom they share that language only, and they are also happy to speak their native languages with students speaking the same native language.
As a language teacher who has a post-graduate degree in linguistics, I can assure you that linguists and psychologists agree that it is important for all students to have these moments when they can fully-rely on their native language to fully express their different feelings, to get these moments when they fully understand people and in turn can be fully understood.
History is full of stories of children prevented to talk their own language at school :
for example indigenous people forced to learn Spanish in Mexico (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Mexico),
native Americans (
http://nmai.si.edu/education/codetalker ... pter3.html)
and non-French speaking French people in France : “In the 1880s, the only language allowed in primary school was French. All other languages were forbidden, even in the schoolyard, and transgressions were severely punished”(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_policy_in_France ). The purpose was to unify a country and a few generations suffered a lot from that obligation.
Nowadays, French people have acknowledged the damage caused by preventing children to use their own language even in the schoolyards.
Now if you are still not convinced, read that advice about teaching ESL students :
“However, there are occasions where it can be quite acceptable for a student to speak his or her own language. “ The author is talking about “occasions” in the classroom. Needless to write it is even more “acceptable” during breaks. “In general, it is worth noting how important it is for students to be able to discuss their work in their own language. This not only helps to develop their understanding of the topic, but also serves to develop their mother tongue proficiency.”
(A guide to learn English, Frankfurt international school, 2013:
http://esl.fis.edu/teachers/support/faq1.htm#3)
At GAU most teachers do not know about that.
The management of the Prep School asked teachers to prevent students from speaking their own languages at any time. I heard once the Middle school manager shouting at my students, on their way to my classroom, just because two Russian boys were talking Russian to each other.
Students can make tremendous progress in English while at the same time being allowed to speak their own native language, at least during break time. We can trust them to learn English very quickly, especially primary students, even if they occasionally resort to their native language.
Anyway, teachers shouting at students not speaking English should think about it: it is virtually impossible to prevent non-English speakers from speaking the language they want to speak unless we put one teacher behind each non-English speaking child. Is this what GAU wants? GAU language policy lags many centuries behind.
Actually, there is no language policy. Another thing we could have worked on if there had been the desire to do so. The management and most teachers have not learnt from the past experiences and their knowledge about the use of languages in a school is inaccurate and harmful: every day students are shouted at and suffer from their ignorance, for their incompetence as managers and teachers.
