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malaise

(286,735 posts)
2. Clearly the crews
Mon Jan 22, 2024, 07:20 PM
Jan 2024

The. vast majority of Caribbean people speak their own or a shared dialect/language.
Many many folks are not bilingual and struggle with standard English. French creole has a strong presence starting with Haiti, Dominica, St. Lucia and to a lesser extent with Grenada and T&T.
All are influenced by African languages as well as the dominant colonial power/powers.
What many don’t know is that there is also the heavy influence of Irish, Scottish as well as English Cockney.
The Queen’s English is.spoken by very few people day to day.

There is a real problem. How do you have teachers supposedly teaching English when they themselves don’t speak it at home.

When I taught voluntary English classes, I taught English as a foreign language and we had excellent results. We just fool ourselves that we speak English. The kids were comfortable and had a blast switching languages.
By the way, Bajan is not merely a language, it is what all Caribbean call Barbadian citizens. He/she is Bajan.

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