When I embarked upon this journey, I was acutely aware that my research has educational implications and I have consistently tried to reach out to the Ministry of education, schools and educators during my stay in the RMI. What I had not anticipated, however, is that my research here was going to fall in the middle of a hotly debated reform in educational policy. Traditionally, the language policy which underpinned the educational system of the RMI aimed at the acquisition of English. The transitional program “gradually increase[d] the amount of time given to English as the LOI [language of instruction], using the local language as the LOI [language of instruction] in the early grades and learning in English in later grades” (Ministry of Education 2015:6). However, as the commission which proposed the new language policy document argued, this was at the expense of proficiency in the indigenous language: Marshallese children grew up “to speak their mother tongue with a level of proficiency suitable for social communication and basic commerce, but not for technical or academic purposes“ (MoE 2015:6). While critical voices of the language policy of the Marshallese school system are not new and have traditionally bemoaned students’ supposed lack of competence in English (Pine and Savage 1989), educators have recently started to ask for a more balanced approach to language use in schools. Their argument that “schools value and celebrate two languages with their respective world views and allow both to be used as the MOI [medium of instruction] for learning multiple ways of being in the world (Low, Penland and Heine 2005: 6) is supported by much research on bilingualism, bidialectalism and creolistics (see Gonzalez, 1998, Orata 1953, Simpkins and Simpkins 1981, Bull 1990) . On the basis of these findings, the RMI public school system has recently effectuated a curriculum in which “Kajin Aelōñ Kein [Marshallese] and English will be teaching languages in a bilingual arrangement. Specifically, Kajin Aelōñ Kein will be the medium of learning in all subjects for grades K–6, except for English Language Arts” (MoE 2015:6).
.... And all of a sudden I find myself in a Language-as-a-Right versus Language-as-a-Resource discussion, which I am not academically equipped for. All I can do is try to read up on the language policy concepts that are being bashed around here and try to do the best I can to build bridges between what I can offer (i.e. variationist descriptive work) and what might be useful for educators here. One of the issues is that I find it a bit difficult to communicate just how my research can be useful to the RMI in its current situation. My ivory tower arguments do not seem to sound terribly convincing to the local educators and policy makers... So I am trying to think outside my comfort zone and make the leap into pedagogy and applied linguistics. Hopefully, this is going to be an educational experience for everyone involved - it certainly is for me!
.... And all of a sudden I find myself in a Language-as-a-Right versus Language-as-a-Resource discussion, which I am not academically equipped for. All I can do is try to read up on the language policy concepts that are being bashed around here and try to do the best I can to build bridges between what I can offer (i.e. variationist descriptive work) and what might be useful for educators here. One of the issues is that I find it a bit difficult to communicate just how my research can be useful to the RMI in its current situation. My ivory tower arguments do not seem to sound terribly convincing to the local educators and policy makers... So I am trying to think outside my comfort zone and make the leap into pedagogy and applied linguistics. Hopefully, this is going to be an educational experience for everyone involved - it certainly is for me!