Language use in education in minority language areas - The case of Logba

Abstract

The use of mother tongue as the medium of instruction for the first three years in schools in Ghana was the language policy long before independence. However, the challenge faced in minority language areas where a second language rather than a first language is employed as the medium of instruction has not been adequately addressed. This study investigates language use in the classroom in a minority language area, Logba to ascertain the levels of comprehension of and performance in the lingua franca, Ewe among the pupils in the first three years of Primary School. This will be compared to the situation of pupils in a monolingual Ewe community in Sokode. The wordless picture book, Frog, where are you? is used as stimulus (Slobin 2004). The findings will confirm our initial suspicion that the Logba pupils will have a slightly lower level of competence and consequently a lower degree of comprehension in Ewe than the Sokode pupils