Brittany Murlas:
Mother Tongue Literacy in Ghana—
A Sociolinguistic Approach
Brittany Murlas studied at the University of Ghana, Accra, with the University of California Education Abroad Programs in fall 2006. Her project was entitled “Mother Tongue Literacy in Ghana: A Sociolinguistic Approach.” She is a double major in Economics and Interdisciplinary Field Studies (concentration: International Educational Development) and is earning a minor in Education at the University of California Berkeley, from where she expects to graduate in fall 2009.
Brittany Murlas wrote the following abstract based on her full-length research paper, which she submitted to The Forum on Education Abroad.
Click here to read an interview with Brittany (the audio version is coming soon).
As we have entered this era of globalization, the importance of literacy has reached new heights; literacy has developed into a symbol of empowerment and of freedom—the key for political, economic and social development. For African societies, literacy becomes particularly vital when we consider multilingualism (in fact, thousands of indigenous African languages are spoken throughout the continent), the effects of Colonialism, unstable nations states, and the inextricable link between language and identity. Before the goal of “literacy for all” can be reached, an often overlooked question must be answered: is literacy the ability to read and write in one’s mother tongue, or, rather, in a global language, such as English or French?
My study, completed during a semester abroad in Ghana, with the Education Abroad Program of the University of California, and continued in a graduate course at the UC Berkeley School of Education, explores mother tongue literacy in Ghana. From the Gold Coast’s first Missionary schools in 1828 to the education policies enforced under Ghana’s changing leaders, the debate over Ghana’s language of instruction is longstanding. Fifty-years ago, when Ghana became Africa’s first independent post-colonial government, Kwame Nkrumah declared English as the country’s official language, although the vast majority of Ghanaians speak one of Ghana’s 56 languages as their first language (L1). Thus, the question remained, which language will be the medium of instruction? International organizations have maintained allegiance to mother tongue literacy, touting research, which proves its cognitive and cultural benefits. 
However, despite this research and support, no West African country uses an indigenous language consistently and effectively as a medium of education. Thus, I observed a policy gap between global scholarship and the daily language practices of Ghanaian primary school students, leading me to question the history and origins of Ghana’s language of instruction policies.
Historically, Ghana’s Ministry of Education has required that Ghanaian languages be the medium of instruction for the first three years of primary school. But in 2002 the mother tongue language policy was replaced by a new policy requiring English as the sole medium of instruction. To find the reasoning behind the switch to an English-only policy, I conducted interviews with students, teachers, school administrators, and Ministry of Education staff. The conclusions I drew from these interviews were compiled with additional research I completed at the University of Ghana Legon, and assembled into nine implementation problems (e.g., lack of resources, teacher disapproval, and urbanization) which plagued indigenous language usage, and ensured the switch to English-only education.
The public's negative perception of local languages arose as the most wide-spread and most detrimental problem for L1 learning, a testament to the intricacies of promoting literacy. I realized the reasoning behind language policies ran much deeper than my deduced implementation challenges. In addition, I noted as I moved forward in my research that many international organizations also overlook the same intricacies, even as they hype L1 literacy. Therefore, in the semester following my study abroad, I decided to continue my research, devoting the second, follow-up phase of my study to explaining the origins of language attitudes, specifically the reasons behind Ghanaians’ disregard for indigenous languages and high regard for English literacy. Having posited that colonialism imposed English upon Ghana, and that the country has adopted this colonial vestige as its official language and as the medium of instruction in schools, I was necessarily led to ask, Why?
I found the roots of these language attitudes are deeply entangled in Ghana’s history and even extend into Ghana’s future. By compiling and examining arguments from several Ghanaian scholars and world-renowned sociolinguists, I conclude that the affects of Colonialism and Globalization are the primary roots to Ghana’s language attitudes. Due to these effects on Ghanaian culture and policies, Ghanaian public sentiment equates education with English, and English with political and economic power; in fact mother tongue literacy is seen as an enormous detriment.
Drawing links between these conclusions, I discuss several possible policy reforms to encourage L1 learning among the public, such as bilingual education, a national mother tongue campaign to increase language prestige, and support from NGOs which are already teaching using local languages. I knew literacy was world renowned for its importance to development, but it wasn’t until I became part of the Ghanaian community that I realized the means to achieving literacy is extraordinarily intricate: Ghana’s history and culture, and the effects of Colonialism and Globalization, must be remembered before literacy can lead to development.
Q&A with Brittany Murlas
A.V.: Why did you decide to study abroad in Ghana?
B.M.: I knew I wanted to study abroad but I didn't know where. I went to all these study abroad panels with students talking about where they'd been. It was clear that the students who were coming back from developing countries had had experiences that affected them at their core. [My] point in going abroad was to learn and grow as a person, so I decided I wanted to go to a developing country. I'd taken a couple classes on international organizations. The [challenges] Africa faces like poverty and AIDS were on the tip of everyone's tongues, so I decided on Africa. I talked with advisers, and Ghana came up as a country that was extraordinarily hospitable. I also wanted to know what it felt like to be the "other," to be a minority. In the case of Ghana, I was the privileged minority being white, but I still wanted to know what it felt like to be somewhere where I was different than everyone else.
A.V.: What inspired your research topic?
B.M. I was volunteering in two schools nearby helping students with their subjects. I was mostly helping them with their English…and basic literacy skills. [When I talked to teachers] they would say the best students were the ones who knew English. That was my experience in the primary schools; and, then, in my university classes I noticed that the professors began by saying, “You can only do well in this class if you know English.” And so I started getting interested in exactly what the language policy was in Ghana, because I knew the students I volunteered with weren't allowed to speak anything but English in the classroom.
That's where the journey began, and it started getting more complicated as I was trying to figure out exactly what the language policy was [and] why people were telling me different things. It finally took going to the Ministry of Education and a couple of conferences in Ghana on Mother Tongue just to figure out exactly what was going on. As I started going into schools and getting into the topic, I [became] more and more fascinated with it, and the project kept getting bigger. Compared to some other students, I definitely spent more time working on my research, because it became something that I was personally motivated to study [and] I felt that the research I did there not only informed me but could inform others.
So my interest in languages definitely happened organically, and it's something [I may pursue] for graduate studies as well, because English is getting bigger as the world is going toward globalization and there are positive and negative aspects of that globalization process.
Who knew I’d be so fascinated with language policies. I didn’t! But it’s opened up a whole new world.
A.V.: How would you compare your research process in Ghana and your research process at Berkeley, where you wrote your full paper?
B.M.: My study in Ghana was much more about understanding the context of Ghana and language policy, because there were very few library resources available to me there. [I knew that when I came back to the University of California I'd have one of the best libraries at my fingertips, and I could [then] look deeper into what other academics had said about this topic. I also had in the back of my head that I might go back to Ghana to do more fieldwork.
When I came back to the United States I took a graduate class called Globalization and International Education, because I thought it would be an awesome opportunity to continue what I was learning in Ghana. We had [to do a] research project, and I continued what I'd worked on in Ghana. The professor was really supportive and helped me formulate my questions a little better, given that I had some context but not 50 pages of transcribed interviews. The [course also] gave me some of the framework for language policy, and then I went back and looked at my research and applied those lessons to it, so [my research process] was a little bit backwards but it worked out well.
A.V.: What were some of the joys of doing research in Ghana:
B.M.: As a student at the Univ. of Ghana I was among the top 2 percent of the country. I was at the upper echelon of Ghanaian students, the young people at the university, so English was very easy to understand and all my Ghanaian friends wanted to know about my country and American trends. When I went outside the university, it was a little bit different. Communicating was a little harder…it was different in a really good way because it showed me a new aspect of the country. One thing that was a constant was that people were extremely friendly and wanted to help. Almost everyone I interviewed invited me to their houses for dinner afterward.
A.V.: What challenges did you face?
B.M.: Research in Ghana was exhausting. Life in Ghana in general just takes more effort. It's pretty hot, and the sense of time is very different…it's just more fluid. If you say you'll meet somebody at 12, [he] might come at 12:30 or 1 p.m. If you have a meeting with someone, [he] might be out that day. So I did lots of trips to the ministry of education…maybe three or four, to finally be able to hook up with this one woman I was interviewing. It was drawn out in a lot of ways. But I think being part of this process was the best learning experience for me.
…After my morning classes, I'd catch a bus (called a “tro-tro”in Ghana) and try to connect with either students, teachers, school principals, [or] a couple of ministry of education staff for interviews.
[In terms of the interview protocol] I used some of the research skills that I had learned from my studies at the University of California Berkeley and [tried to transfer] them over to Ghana [but there were some cultural challenges], such as when you bring out a tape recorder, you have to explain why you are using a tape recorder, and things of this nature.
I also didn't tape record [many of my] interviews because the language policy in Ghana is a controversial topic. Teachers didn't want administrators to hear that sometimes they allow a Mother Tongue to be spoken in the classrooms. Right after my interviews I pretty much [had to write] as much as I could remember from what was said. I did this because I knew it would be the only primary research I would have.
[When I'd go to interviews] I'd have certain questions in mind, but sometimes I had to push and nudge the interviewee to get to the point because it was kind of a controversial topic, and people didn't always know why or have the words in English to explain about the mandatory language of instruction in classrooms.
I tailored the question of "Why does the language policy exist?" to each different population. With the students [it was a little more difficult] because they were mostly in awe of me and why I wanted to know about them; with teachers I talked more casually because I wanted them to know that I was going to go tell whatever school administrator what they thought of the policy; principals were a little more formal; and [with the] Ministry of Education staff [it was much more formal]. I actually did tape record [those interviews. They taught] me what the policy was and why it existed. It was awesome to get that kind of spectrum. I had to think before I went into each interview about exactly how I was going to get at the questions I wanted to ask.
A.V.: How did you prepare for conducting research?
B.M. I was very unsure exactly what the experience would be for me and exactly what my research would turn into; however, I was fortunate compared to most of my classmates because I’d done research with professors through the Undergraduate Research Apprenticeship Program at the U.C. Berkeley School of Education, so I had experience with interview protocol, focus groups, typing transcripts, and coding and [identifying] emergent findings through interviews. I this luck out in that I came in with that experience. I also brought a couple of books [see "For More Info" sidebar] with me on creating research questions and methodology. I feel like if I’d come into Ghana knowing exactly what I wanted to do my research project on, it still would have been tweaked once I got there because my research project even tweaked while I was there. Just by being in the classroom I learned what I was impassioned about and what I found to be one of the major classroom challenges, which was language policy. So I guess in retrospect I would have loved to have read up on language policy because I was going into a field that I didn’t know anything about and now feel much more comfortable with, but I don’t know if I would have changed it because I couldn’t be an expert on all classroom things before I went to go Ghana. I’m really excited to continue research and to go back to Ghana to continue looking at the language policy issues, even internationally, because I’m becoming more knowledgeable about [the topic]. There are graduate schools that focus just on the globalization of language!
A.V.: How did this experience shape what you want to do in the future?
B.M.: My full research paper was written in the United States with all those resources on what the language policies were and looking at what other academics had written, but I think what took my research project to the next level when I got back was that I had a context for how Ghanaian classrooms work and what Ghanaian culture is like. My first research paper that I submitted after my experience in Ghana was mostly information on everything I had learned, but I hadn’t connected that to any bigger themes like colonialism and globalization pushes, and things of this nature.
There is a balance between [field-based] experience and more theoretical and academic approaches. I think what I learned is that there has to be a happy medium of both. There’s definitely a need to understand context, because it makes that context much richer for both people who are learning and teaching.
I would like to work in international education, or educational development. In my reading I found a lot of great research coming out of UNESCO, so that’s been an organization on my mind [or an organization like this]. I’d love to be a student forever, so I am interested in going to graduate school for international education. I am an economics major at U.C. Berkeley, in addition to an education major, so I am also using econometrics to measure trends and to measure qualitatively and quantitatively the impacts of international education. In terms of shorter-term goals…I’ve been really interested in the Fulbright program to get an opportunity to go out and do more research. I’d also love to teach abroad, as well, though I’ve debated whether I want to teach English because there are some questions that come along with that now that I know the impacts that learning English can have on cultures, but I’d love to be in that classroom environment before I decide to be a researcher, go to graduate school, or teach. I’d love more world experiences. There’s a balance between the traveling and experiencing and then connecting those lessons to theories that already exist in academia.
A.V.: What advice do you have for future undergraduates who want to do research abroad?
B.M.: I talked to a lot of study abroad students before I went to Ghana, and what a lot of them said is that you can’t have any expectations, because your expectations will be broken when you get there. You can’t expect what exactly Ghana [or any other country] will be like, because it will be different for everybody, so my one goal in going abroad was that I wanted to learn and grow as a person. I had the goal of doing a junior and senior thesis, working in a school, and teaching; [but when I got there], along with school, I tried to push [all that] to the side and just be there.
[Also before I went abroad I went to an orientation where our adviser gave us a list 13 strategies for having a successful study abroad experience.] The top three things were: have a good sense of humor; low goal- and task-orientation; and ability to fail.
What I got out of this was to go to Ghana being open for things to morph and change: to be open to having other cultures and your experience inform your research rather than going in knowing exactly what you want to study, who you’re going to interview, why it’s going to work, and what you’re going to try to show; but being open to the process. I think I learned that research is a progression.
I’ve been back from Ghana for a year, and I’ve been so excited to go abroad again because it was such an amazing learning experience and continues to be. I don’t think I would have know that I’d had this great passion for language policy and research and [making] connections to [the] affects of colonialism and globalization until I was open to exploring it.
A.V.: Did continuing your Ghanaian research project when you returned home ease your reverse culture shock in any way?
B.M.: While I was in Ghana typing up my research project and when I got back what was motivating me was that what I was studying could make some change, inform somebody somewhere abut this topic. So even though I wasn’t in Ghana anymore the idea that compiling research from all these studies could inform how my Ghanaian roommate’s little brother went through school was really cool. It also was an opportunity for me to continue the Ghana experience. I knew while I was in Ghana I was going through an amazing learning experience, but even when I got back I was learning from my experience in Ghana, especially in the International Education and Globalization course [at UC Berkeley]. In all the topics I had the context in my head for what it looked like and felt like not only to be in a developing country but also to be sitting in a classroom in a developing country and to be tutoring in a classroom in a developing country. The culture shock back was still bad but being able to continue my interests in Ghana definitely helped. I’m still in contact with my roommate and teammates from Ghana, and going back is definitely part of my longer-term plan.