In this reading group meeting we focussed on the following article:

READING: Sherris, A., & Peyton, J.K. (2023). The power of multiliteracy in The Gambia and Ghana. In A.C. Hager-M’Boua & F. Jaumont (Eds.), A bilingual revolution for Africa. New York, NY: TBR Books. [You can download the article below]

This meeting was based on the discussion of a book chapter that Joy Peyton wrote with Ari Sherris about a project to promote and develop multilingualism and multiliteracy in The Gambia and Ghana. One of the reasons that we wanted Joy to present her work is because of her significant role (with Carolyn Adger) in developing materials for national language literacy lessons in The Gambia.

The Gambia Read Program: During the presentation, Joy emphasized that the Gambia Read program was developed by the MoBSE, in collaboration with the World Bank and the Global Partnership for Education. The program ran between 2008 to 2013, and the main goal was to develop materials in students’ mother tongues. The idea was to engage them in confidently speaking and reading their mother tongue(s) both individually and in groups. The seven most widely spoken national languages (to various extents) were chosen. These are: Jola, Mandinka, Manjaku, Olof, Pulaar, Seereer and Sarahule. Other languages were not part of this initiative, as they are either spoken only as a second language or not spoken widely at all.

Curriculum Development: The team working on the Gambia Read project comprised different experts from different languages and backgrounds, and Momodou Jeng (director of national language program) was the principal education officer. The project focused on grades 1 to 3 and its purpose was to review and update the curriculum and develop national language literacy lessons in all seven national languages and English for these grades. As part of this project, they also developed books for these grades (using Bloom software), which were later distributed to different schools in The Gambia.

Joy highlighted the challenges of writing books for grade 1 students, as most of these students had not yet learned or did not have a clear understanding of the letters. However, there was a need to figure out what words to be used for their understanding.

Below were some of the challenges they face in using these books in schools:

1. Printing of the books
2. Getting the books to different schools in The Gambia
3. Having storage for the books in the schools
4. The time allocated for the teaching of the national language
5. Teachers’ knowledge and skills with teaching the national language

In response to these challenges, the World Bank recommended that there should be a plan and a structure for continuing to develop materials in the national languages. Regarding the levelled readers, they suggested that these should be evaluated. They also acknowledged that this can be difficult because of the financial and administrative challenges, even if the key stakeholders support it.

A warm thank you to all attendees.

In this reading group meeting we focussed on the following article:

READING: Graham Tucker, J.M., 2014. Building capacity for Gambian researchers (Doctoral dissertation, Auckland University of Technology). [click link below to download]

Attendees: 12+ people from various backgrounds.

We were interested to explore how Gambian scholars conduct research into language and multilingualism in The Gambia and we therefore invited Dr. Jules Mansaly and Fakeba Kujabi, two lecturers from the University of The Gambia, to facilitate the meeting. The discussion was organised around three questions:

1. What kind of questions are those interested in conducting research in the field of languages and multilingualism of the Gambia should ask?
2. How important are these for Gambian society, research, students, etc.?
3. Which hurdles do scholars in the Gambia interest in this field of research face and how can these be overcome?

Jules Mansaly briefly introduced himself, which was useful since we learnt, for example, that he comes from the Casamance region of Senegal and therefore has a first-hand experience of multilingualism. It was also useful to hear about his experience of working with Gambian university students, particularly int terms of dissertation supervision. He gave us a few examples of research topics explored by past and current students at UTG:

• “Code-switching among students at the Gambia College”
• “Code-switching in teaching and learning”
• “The effect of code alternation in teaching and learning English language and second language classroom”

Other research questions which could be explored by students were also suggested, e.g.:

• What are the most commonly spoken languages in the Gambia?
• What are the linguistic challenges faced by Gambian speakers of minority languages?
• What strategies have been developed to help Gambians become multilingual?
• How do Gambian language policies and practices shape language use and identity?
• How does the Gambian education system promote multilingualism?

This led another participant to attempt combining some of these questions:

• How can “natural” Gambian multilingualism be drawn upon (linguistic resources) to add new languages?

Language ideologies in the Gambia, borrowings in local languages, interpretation and other topics were also brought up as worth studying. Regarding the topic of interpretation, the richness of interpreting practices in The Gambia was discussed.

One of the major obstacles said to face those conducting research at UTG was the challenges of gathering data. The limited time available to Gambian scholars as well as the practical challenges in collecting language-related data were notably discussed.

To conclude, solutions to issues related to the research training of students was discussed. It was taunted as a fundamental issue at UTG.

A warm thank you to all attendees.

This reading group meeting focused on the following article:

READING Brock-Utne, B., 2014. Language of instruction in Africa-the most important and least appreciated issue. International Journal of Educational Development in Africa, 1(1), pp.4-18.

We discussed at length which language(s) should be used as the language of instruction. Overall, the use of English, particularly during early stages of schooling, was considered to be inadequate for most Gambian children who have no or extremely limited proficiency in this foreign language. Some suggested that two of the national languages, namely Mandinka and Olof, could be used as languages of instruction since the majority of the population can speak these two languages. However, one of the participants suggested that Pulaar should be added to this list since there were a sizeable proportion of Gambians who do not speak either Mandinka or Olof. The use of other national languages was also discussed in reference to positions according to which all children should have access to education in the language they know best.

Regarding the use of national languages as languages of instruction, one of the participants suggested that it might be challenging and would take time before such policy be implemented fully. Awareness raising, if national languages were to be used as a language of instruction was presented as being critical for the success of such initiatives. This was linked to the challenges faced by the implementers of the early parallel biliteracy programme (literacy lessons in English and a national language are supposed to be available to all Grade 1 to Grade 3 children in The Gambia since 2015). Indeed, many teachers have found the teaching of the national language literacy lessons challenging because, for example, of parents’ limited awareness of the importance of teaching national languages. Other challenges such as lack of resources and issues with training were also mentioned and it was considered that lessons could be learnt form this programme if it was decided that national languages should be used as languages of instruction.

The launch of Language in The Gambia Forum was with Hon. Sidia Sana Jatta on 4^th October 2022 with a talk entitled ‘Status and teaching of the national languages during and after the colonial rule in the Gambia’.

Dr Seraphin Kamden from the School of Oriental and African Studies was the facilitator of the meeting.

Sidia Sana Jatta opened the discussion by expressing his thoughts on how national languages could be better integrated in all aspects of Gambian society, lamenting on the continued invisibility of national languages in prestigious domains such as the media.  Concerning the topic of which language to use as a language of instruction, he recalled that The Gambia has been using English as its only language of instruction since its Independence. He clearly explained why this situation was deplorable. During the discussion where he was asked to expand on the some of the points covered during his talk, he explained why he felt that his experience of being taught in Mandinka for two years (the experiment lasted only two years) while he was a primary school child (during the colonial period) had had a long-lasting positive impact on his learning abilities.  The first language he ever learned was Mandinka, one of the languages of his home, and he explained how it shaped him as a learner. After being kept out of school for two years, he still outperformed his peers in his new English medium school.

During the discussions, we learnt about Sidia Sana Jatta’s role in the development of the orthography of Mandinka, but also Pulaar and Olof in the late 70s. This programme had to be aborted after two years due to lack of government support, e.g. the materials his team developed as part of this programme had all to be written by hand which was not sustainable.

Sidia Sana Jatta also brought to our attention a variety of settings where the (absence of) use of national languages is noticeable, e.g. Gambians who cannot speak English are denied access to many high ranking public government positions.

Dr Seraphin Kamdem’s many questions also allowed Sidia Sana Jatta to discuss the connection between the continued pressure on national language and politics. For him, a lack of political will is largely responsible, for example, for the current English as a language of instruction policy which de facto prevents many children form accessing learning.

It was interesting to hear the views of representatives of Curriculum, who stressed that national languages should be used as the languages of instruction, while also expressing their disappointment with politicians and intellectuals for not taking a serious commitment to embracing national languages in the Gambian education system.

In conclusion, Sidia Sana Jatta presented the scarcity of reading materials in the national languages as a critical issue. Developing such materials, according to him, would help people to understand better their own language. He also expressed that more people should be doing research into the languages of The Gambia and therefore more support for those interested in conducting research in those areas should be given.

A warm thank you to all those who attended.

For our ninth meeting on Tuesday 6 September 5.00-6.30pm Gambian Time, we had asked our attendees to read a few excerpts from—as far as we know—the only academic research article on the topic of Gambian language use in healthcare settings. This article was:

ARTICLE: Kayode, O.S., Ibitoye, B. and Olanrewaju, M.K., 2013. Roles of Local Languages on Effective Public Healthcare Delivery in the Gambia: Implications for Psychological Assessment. Texila International Journal of Public Health [you can download at the top of this page; the excerpts we asked attendees to focus on can be found on the meeting page).

Around a dozen people attended the meeting and we had a mixture of healthcare professionals and academics from The Gambia and beyond. Liz Jacobs (Vice President for Research, MaineHealth) and Allison Squires (in absentia, Research Associate Professor, Dept. of General Internal Medicine, Grossman School of Medicine, New York University) had agreed to support our meeting due to their expertise in language issues in multilingual health settings. They shared with us some useful resources you might want to consult (see end of the summary). 

The meeting focused on the four questions below:

1. When is English used in healthcare settings? When are Gambian/local languages used in healthcare settings?

2. p. 2. The authors talk about ‘local language discordant encounters’. How do such kinds of encounters manifest in The Gambia? See below for a definition of language discordant encounters: “Language-discordant encounters occur when patients and healthcare providers speak different first languages, which may manifest as differences in proficiency and experience and therefore hinder the ability to communicate nuances critical for understanding [7]. Language concordance is a particularly important foundation to gain trust, optimize health outcomes and advance health equity in diverse patient populations.” The above quote is from: Molina, R.L. and Kasper, J., 2019. The power of language-concordant care: a call to action for medical schools. BMC medical education, 19(1), pp.1-5.

3. Research shows that using a language patients understand/local languages boosts patient satisfaction, improves the rate of compliance with medical instruction and therefore health improvements, reduces anxiety for the patient, etc. and reduces cost. What are the barriers to local language healthcare provision in The Gambia?

4. How could local language communication in healthcare settings be improved? (See recommendations in the article)

Our discussions highlighted a few important points regarding the language situation in healthcare settings in The Gambia. 

First, it was highlighted by several health practitioners (including a registered practicing nurse in The Gambia) that spoken interactions between patients and health practitioners mostly happened in Gambian languages, particularly the two languages of wider communication of The Gambia: Olof and Mandinka. In keeping with conversations we have had in other reading group meetings, we were reminded that many Gambians speak Olof and/or Mandinka fluently. The strategies used by practitioners to determine which language to speak with their patients were discussed at length.  We notably honed in on specific strategies they use to determine what might be patients’ first language. Some practitioners shared that if they have access to it, they use the surname of patients (and other indicators too such as what they might wear) to determine patients’ ethnic origin and therefore the language they might be able to speak. Others waited to see which language patients would use when they initiate the conversation (after exchanging the common Muslim greetings in Arabic). 

Second (and related to our first point), English was said to be used in spoken interactions in health settings in a relatively small number of circumstances such as instances when patients may not be Gambian and therefore would be unable to speak the aforementioned languages of wider communication and when healthcare practitioners might be posted to areas in The Gambia where they don’t speak the local languages. The specific case of Cuban health practitioners who came to The Gambia in the noughties and could not speak Gambian languages (and at times could not speak English either) was also taunted as an example of communication challenges in healthcare settings in The Gambia. However, it was also emphasised that anything which had to do with writing in healthcare contexts would be done exclusively in English since Gambian languages are not commonly read and written. 

Third, the fact that most healthcare practitioners can only speak one of the two languages of wider communication—Olof and Mandinka—was presented as one of the key challenges, especially when they are posted in areas where their language is not spoken. This was said to be frequent in the Upper River Region of The Gambia (The Gambia is divided into 6 administrative regions based on their position relative to The Gambia River). 

Fourth, in language discordant situations, i.e. situations where the patients and health practitioners do not speak the same language(s), we discussed two important topics which time did not allow us to fully explore: (i) the use of community interpreters (e.g. adults or children in the patient’s family) and (ii) healthcare practitioners’ ad hoc learning of the languages of communities they might be posted in. The latter point echoed discussions we had in previous meetings where we discussed teachers being posted in communities they do not speak the language and learning by themselves the local language(s) by immersing themselves in these communities. 

Liz Jacobs concluded the meeting by emphasising that the kinds of communication discussed during the meeting were universal. Drawing on their experience of working in a wide range of geopolitical South and African contexts, they expressed their satisfaction that many encounters in healthcare contexts in The Gambia were language concordant, i.e. patients and healthcare practitioners are often able to communicate in a language they fully understand. However, they also reminded us that there are many things which can be done to support healthcare contexts such as The Gambia’s, where the language of spoken and written interactions isn’t the same. Ensuing conversations included discussions around opportunities for in-service or pre-service health practitioners to participate in training in medical interpreting and/or attend language courses to learn the two languages of wider communication and other Gambian languages. 

Resources recommended by Allison Squires and Liz Jacobs:

US National Council for Interpreting in Health Care: www.ncihc.org. They have excellent training resources and many of their webinars are recorded. 

Hull, M. (2016). Medical language proficiency: A discussion of interprofessional language competencies and potential for patient risk. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 54, 158–172. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2015.02.015   

mac Donnacha, J. (2000). An Integrated Language Planning Model. Language Problems & Language Planning, 24(1), 11–35. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ621497 

Please email clyde.ancarno@kcl.ac.uk if you can’t access the articles above.