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VOA慢速英语2015 学习用Safaliba语言读书有助于加纳孩子学英语

时间:2015-05-05 22:18:55

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Learning to Read in Safaliba Helps Ghanaian Kids Learn English 学习用Safaliba语言读书有助于加纳孩子学英语

Ghana’s official national language is English. But for most citizens English is also a second language.

Until recently, children in the country had to learn English as soon as they entered school. But, many had little contact with English, especially those in poor rural areas. As a result, many Ghanaian children never learned to read and write. 

The National Literacy1 Acceleration2 Program (NALAP) was designed to help deal with this problem. The country-wide program opened in 2010. It teaches reading and writing in local languages during a two-year kindergarten program and during grades one through three. Then in grade four, children begin to study in English only. 

Safaliba is a rare language with about 7,000 speakers in several towns in northern Ghana. It is mainly a spoken language. Among Safaliba speakers, the literacy rate in English is only eight percent.

Public school teachers in northern Ghana teach reading and writing in English and Gonja, one of the more common native languages in the area. The Ministry3 of Education provides the local schools with materials in those languages.

Safaliba had no common written form until 2003. A research team of Ghanaian and American educators is working to change that.

Writing an oral language

Paul Schaefer grew up in Ghana and works for the Christian4 based non-governmental organization GILLBT. That stands for Ghana Institute of Linguistics5, Literacy, and Bible Translation. Beginning in 1998, he and his wife, Jennifer Schaefer, studied the Safaliba language. They worked together with Safaliba speakers to develop a way to write the language. They used this written language in adult literacy programs and published short books for the students to read.

Iddi Bayaya is the main Safaliba literacy teacher. He is a farmer who had a few years of primary school education. Mr. Bayaya attended government-supported classes in Gonja and learned to be a literacy facilitator6 in that language.

Since 2003, Mr. Bayaya has taught a nightly literacy class in his northern Ghanaian hometown, Mandari. He trained several other people to teach Safaliba literacy in Mandari. Then he began literacy classes in two other Safaliba-speaking villages.

Children want to learn, too

Soon children started coming to the adult classes. The young people learned the written language quickly. Paul Schaefer says the classes helped people learn the many ways written language could help them. He says they also learned that children who learn to read and write in their own language can use those skills in a second language and do better in school.

“So then they were basically saying that, well, we've seen that this does benefit the children in their formal education, why can't we have our language in the schools?"

Paul Schaefer says the idea came from the famous anthropologist7 Esther Goody.

“In her later years she was living here in Bole and doing research into education basically using local languages. She said, 'you're doing adult education, but if you would focus on also getting the children educated, eventually there wouldn't be a need for adult education.’”

It was not long before the Safaliba community asked to enlarge the adult program to include children. Ari Sherris is a professor of bilingual education at Texas A&M University in Kingsville, Texas. He began working with the government literacy program in Ghana about ten years ago. Esther Goody introduced him to Paul Schaefer in 2012 and over the next two years they talked about ways to work together on the school project. In 2014, Mr. Sherris visited the Safaliba area twice and helped encourage the new movement to teach the Safaliba language in school. He plans to live with Safaliba speakers and help them create Safaliba-English bilingual books.   

The Mandari Safaliba Chief, Bodua Mango Kafinti the Second, also supports this effort. He sees the writing of Safaliba as a way to preserve the language. He says the language helps protect the culture. He says people must become proud of their language to guarantee it continues.

Meeting the need the need for teachers and materials

In January, the U.S. Department of State awarded Professor Sherris an education prize called a Fulbright. It will support him to come to Ghana for a year to help develop the bilingual program for school children in Safaliba and English.  

Ari Sherris and Mr. Schaefer together visited a class in northern Ghana. They noticed that some children struggled with English while others did not. The educators learned that the more successful children attended the night classes with their parents.

“In teaching and observing in some of the classes, we realized that even at sixth grade, the majority were not able to read. But in the third grade, that we spent the most time in, we did some testing. Many of them did not know their letters. They did not know the sounds of the letters, which is not surprising, because the English alphabet is just extremely haphazard8 even if you know the language. We spent a few days teaching a few alphabet letters and linking them to key words in their local language. And just within a class period, you could see kids were grasping the whole point of an alphabet that hadn't ever before. You could see what could be done with it if it was done all the time. There is a sense of which, you don't want to claim too much, but there is another sense in which language is very powerful, and the language that you know is something that you can really build on.” 

Since the Safaliba language has only recently been written, there are few materials for teachers and students to read. 

“Well, one thing that’s absolutely  critical is the issue of publishing materials. Even though we live in an era where a lot is done on the Internet, I don’t think it’s practical to have literacy without books. And so our biggest need is to be able to print more books.”

Paul Schaefer is happy that donors9 to the Safaliba project recently purchased a copy machine, called a duplicator. Having the duplicator in the Safaliba area makes it possible to do almost all the printing work locally. It will help the Safaliba community to print books in their own language. A Safaliba speaking artist, Kotochi Mahatma, will be creating illustrations for the books.

“This is not a photocopier10 but it is something that could make potentially thousands of copies. Our vision is that if we can turn it into something like a small local press, we’ll be able to meet their need for materials and possibly reach out to the other minority languages in the area.”

The new duplicator meant that GILLBT could publish a dictionary for beginning readers. The first bilingual dictionary of Safaliba and English was published in 2014.  It has almost 1000 words. It will help both beginning readers of Safaliba and beginning learners of English. The dictionary also provides teachers with creative, fun, educational activities for young learners.

As their Chief hopes, young children in the Safaliba community can now learn to read and take pride in their language.

Words in This Story

kindergarten – n. a school or class for very young children

literacy – n. the ability to read and write

linguistics – n. the study of language and of the way languages work

translation – n. the act or process of translating something into a different language

primary – adj. relating to the education of young children

facilitate11 - v. to help (something) run more smoothly12 and effectively

practical – adj. likely to succeed and reasonable to do or use

illustration - n. a picture or drawing in a book or magazine

potentially– adv. possibly but not yet actually

press – n. a printing or publishing business


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点击收听单词发音收听单词发音  

1 literacy L3tyN     
n.识字,有文化,读写能力
参考例句:
  • I can't believe that he failed the literacy test.我无法相信他识字测试不及格。
  • The literacy rate there is the highest in Central America.那里的识字率居中美洲之首。
2 acceleration ff8ya     
n.加速,加速度
参考例句:
  • All spacemen must be able to bear acceleration.所有太空人都应能承受加速度。
  • He has also called for an acceleration of political reforms.他同时呼吁加快政治改革的步伐。
3 ministry kD5x2     
n.(政府的)部;牧师
参考例句:
  • They sent a deputation to the ministry to complain.他们派了一个代表团到部里投诉。
  • We probed the Air Ministry statements.我们调查了空军部的记录。
4 Christian KVByl     
adj.基督教徒的;n.基督教徒
参考例句:
  • They always addressed each other by their Christian name.他们总是以教名互相称呼。
  • His mother is a sincere Christian.他母亲是个虔诚的基督教徒。
5 linguistics f0Gxm     
n.语言学
参考例句:
  • She plans to take a course in applied linguistics.她打算学习应用语言学课程。
  • Linguistics is a scientific study of the property of language.语言学是指对语言的性质所作的系统研究。
6 facilitator 8887c77aa1467e9002eac72c5ec24691     
n.帮助者
参考例句:
  • The teacher acts as a facilitator of learning. 教师是学习的诱导者。
  • The facilitator asks the brainstorming group for their ideas. 主持人向脑力激荡专家小组征求意见。
7 anthropologist YzgzPk     
n.人类学家,人类学者
参考例句:
  • The lecturer is an anthropologist.这位讲师是人类学家。
  • The anthropologist unearthed the skull of an ancient human at the site.人类学家在这个遗址挖掘出那块古人类的颅骨。
8 haphazard n5oyi     
adj.无计划的,随意的,杂乱无章的
参考例句:
  • The town grew in a haphazard way.这城镇无计划地随意发展。
  • He regrerted his haphazard remarks.他悔不该随口说出那些评论话。
9 donors 89b49c2bd44d6d6906d17dca7315044b     
n.捐赠者( donor的名词复数 );献血者;捐血者;器官捐献者
参考例句:
  • Please email us to be removed from our active list of blood donors. 假如你想把自己的名字从献血联系人名单中删去,请给我们发电子邮件。
  • About half this amount comes from individual donors and bequests. 这笔钱大约有一半来自个人捐赠及遗赠。 来自《简明英汉词典》
10 photocopier WlwzlN     
n.复印机
参考例句:
  • You've left your master in the photocopier.你把原件留在影印机里了。
  • If the photocopier stops working,just give it a clout.如果那部影印机停止运转的话就敲它一下。
11 facilitate 4zwym     
vt.使容易(便利)推进,促进
参考例句:
  • Modern inventions facilitate housework.许多现代发明便利了家务劳动。
  • The new airport will facilitate the development of tourism.新机场将促进旅游业的发展。
12 smoothly iiUzLG     
adv.平滑地,顺利地,流利地,流畅地
参考例句:
  • The workmen are very cooperative,so the work goes on smoothly.工人们十分合作,所以工作进展顺利。
  • Just change one or two words and the sentence will read smoothly.这句话只要动一两个字就顺了。

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