This month, Haiti’s government announced a new policy to educate students in Kreyòl, the native language of most Haitians, rather than French, the language traditionally used in schools. Introducing Kreyòl-language instruction has been a cause of Michel DeGraff, a professor of linguistics at MIT and a native of Haiti. MIT News recently discussed the policy shift with him.

Q. Why is it important to help Haitian students learn in Kreyòl?

A. Research has shown that we learn best in the languages we speak most fluently. In Haiti, at least 95 percent of the population is fluent in Kreyòl only. The use of any other language of instruction is a recipe for academic failure. This failure becomes a national tragedy when it repeats itself generation after generation, with Kreyòl-speaking children being taught in French.

According to research in cognitive science, becoming a good reader involves a “virtuous triangle” that seamlessly connects three sets of linguistic representations: letters on the page (“graphemes”), sounds in the corresponding language (“phonemes”), and word meanings (“semantics”). This triangle is most effective when all three — graphemes, phonemes, and semantics — pertain to the reader’s native language.

When Haitian children who speak only Kreyòl are taught to read in French (often by teachers who themselves are not fluent in French), the graphemes on the page relate to one language (French) while the phonemes and semantics in the child’s mind relate to another language (Kreyòl). So the triangle is “broken,” and the child, at best, will manage to parrot French sounds without adequate understanding of the text.

The matter is actually more complicated, because French words often sound somewhat like Kreyòl even when the corresponding meanings are substantially distinct. This “broken triangle” is the scientific explanation for one key factor underlying the massive failure of Haiti’s school system: Most Haitian children are never given the opportunity to become fluent readers. They never learn to read well, so they can’t read to learn.

Thanks to a National Science Foundation grant, the data that I have collected at the Lekòl Kominotè Matènwa (LKM), a school in La Gonave, Haiti, show that Haitian children who are taught in Kreyòl achieve much higher learning gains than their counterparts who learn in French. Once children have strong foundations in their native language, they are better equipped to learn all academic subjects, including second languages such as French.

Last year (2014), all 25 sixth-graders at LKM passed the official exam administered by the state (compared with an overall success rate of 71 percent). What’s less measurable, but also profoundly important, is the dignity of these Haitian children at LKM, whose joyful creativity is set free when they can learn in their native Kreyòl.

As for mathematics and science, the logical thinking that is necessary to succeed in these fields requires a great deal of reasoning and communication. The effective use of language is, thus, an essential ingredient there as well. In the NSF-funded MIT-Haiti Initiative, we’ve documented how teachers and students perform better when pedagogical resources, especially those for learning science and mathematics, are in Kreyòl.

Q. What are the specifics of this new agreement?

A. This is the first agreement between Haiti’s Ministry of National Education and Professional Training (MENFP) and the newly created Haitian Creole Academy (“Akademi Kreyòl Ayisyen,” or AKA), of which I am a founding member; AKA was inaugurated in December 2014. AKA’s mandate includes the establishment of conventions around the use of Kreyòl and the promotion of Kreyòl in all sectors of society.

The core objective of this new agreement between MENFP and AKA is to further promote Kreyòl, and Kreyòl speakers’ linguistic rights. MENFP and AKA have now created a formal framework to work together to expand the use of Kreyòl as a teaching tool at all levels of Haiti’s system, from kindergarten to university. This also entails the standardization of Kreyòl writing, and the training of teachers for instruction of, and in, Kreyòl.

I am both excited and anxious about the concrete steps to implement this agreement. In Haiti’s history we’ve had too many laws, decrees, and agreements that have never been implemented or whose implementation has been sabotaged from the get-go. Take, say, Article 5 of Haiti’s 1987 constitution, which made Kreyòl an official language alongside French and which recognized Kreyòl as the sole language that binds the Haitian people together. Also consider Article 40 of the same constitution, which requires the government to communicate information about all state matters in both Kreyòl and French. These articles of the constitution are violated on a daily basis by the government, which most often — and especially in writing — communicates in French only. The Akademi Kreyòl Ayisyen itself, which was decreed in the 1987 constitution, took 27 years to become reality.

However, MENFP Minister Nesmy Manigat has shown an extraordinary amount of political will to promote Kreyòl. He is wholeheartedly supporting AKA and its agenda, as shown in the signing, on July 8, of this MENFP-AKA agreement. As he explained at the signing ceremony, Haitian schools have for too long wasted the potential of too many students by ignoring their native Kreyòl, and he trusts that this agreement will help ensure that all Haitian students have the same opportunity to succeed in school.

As a member of the administrative council of AKA, I am helping set up a workshop series on the standardization of Kreyòl writing. We’ve had an official Kreyòl alphabet since 1979. But there are many loose threads remaining when it comes to establishing a standard writing system. Once these conventions are set in place — a major task that will necessarily take time — then we’ll start working on teacher-training workshops to spread the standardized writing system among teachers, students, and the general population.

Q. How does your understanding of Kreyòl as a linguist undercut some of the justifications offered in the past for French-language use and instruction?

A. One reason that has been offered to justify excluding Kreyòl from formal education is the claim that Kreyòl is a structurally lesser language that does not afford the same capacity as French to express complex concepts in science, mathematics, philosophy, and so on. One dogma in linguistics is that Creole languages are the world’s “simplest” languages because of their origins from “Pidgin” languages. Some linguists have even gone so far as to compare Creole languages to the earliest human languages spoken by Homo sapiens.

My linguistic research has argued against such claims, which I’ve given the umbrella term of “Creole exceptionalism.” I’ve shown in a series of research articles that such claims are empirically and theoretically untenable. The development paths and structures of Creole languages are on a par with their counterparts for languages such as English and French. My linguistics research shows that English and French, given their “hybridity” and structural distance from their respective ancestor languages (Proto-Germanic and Latin), could be considered more “Creole” than Haitian Kreyòl! Really, there is no linguistic reason why Creole languages should be excluded from the classroom — or from the family of “normal” human languages.

In addition, the MIT-Haiti Initiative has provided living proof that Kreyòl is perfectly usable as a language of instruction for advanced mathematics, physics, biology, and more. Better yet, the use of Kreyòl in the classroom improves the quality of teaching. We’ve been documenting such improvement with Haitian students and faculty who have participated in our NSF-funded work in Haiti since 2010.

So, indeed, the use of Kreyòl should be embraced as a powerful tool for development at all levels of Haiti’s education system and beyond, in every sector of Haitian society.

I congratulate Professor Degraff's wholehearted commitment to making Kreyol the language used in Haiti to teach in schools, and universities eventually. Haiti is probably the only country in the world whose successive governments have maintained a linguistic apartheid. Just on that basis alone, the vast majority of the Haitian people, young and old, have been kept back from taking part in the sociopolitical and economic development of Haiti. Imagine a country where the language spoken in court, the language the laws and law books are written in, is one the average citizen doesn't understand??

I particularly appreciate Mr. Degraff's point about English and French as Kreyol languages. I think the same can be said of Spanish Italian and Portuguese.

Hopefully, with enough sustained political will uplifting this new policy, Haiti's young population will fast track itself into being educated and knowledgeable young adults able to compete on par with their peers in the developed nations. Maybe then, the last nation of the hemisphere will be the first in scholastic achievement.

This is great news! I also hope it will be implemented. But what about the argument that learning in Kreyol will isolate Haitians since it is the only country in the world that uses that language? This was a justification for mainly French education since it would supposedly open the door to more resources(there is very little written in Kreyol compared to French) and to the international community since French is fairly widely known.

Please have a look at my document 'International opinion on language issues: mother tongue is the key to education, knowledge, science and English learning', along with some more documents on language issues at http://punjabiuniversity.acade... This document provides a gist of international research, expert opinion and international linguistic situation. It is available in Punjabi (Gurmukhi and Shahmukhi), Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Maithili, Hindi, Dogri, Nepali and English from the above website. It contains vital information relevant for the life and development of mother tongues and, more importantly, the role mother tongues play in development in general and, very importantly, in learning of a foreign language. I can send you the pdf copy if you provide your email. You can also watch three video talks in Punjabi based on this document at

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

One video talk on language issues can be watched in English at https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

and one in Hindi can be watched at

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Please make your contribution to the struggle for Indian languages by further publicizing the facts given here and in the document mentioned above. VICTORY TO THE MOTHER TONGUES! Prof. Joga Singh, [email protected], +919915709582

I have the utmost respect for Dr. Degraff's initiative, having seen firsthand the benefits of allowing schoolchildren to communicate in the same language they use beyond the walls of a classroom. It would seem that the intent of my own recent project to provide French books to a school in Lascahobas* runs counter to Dr. Degraff's philosophy, but in fact, I agree with him that Kreyol should be given far more value.

The more I read and hear about linguistics and the case of Haiti's linguistic dichotomy, the more ignorant I feel, because there are so many factors involved and so many opinions. I observed some tension between the use of the two languages firsthand while I was in Haiti. Teachers told me that parents insist their kids learn French in school, because they see it as a ticket to a brighter future. The teachers don't see French going away anytime soon. However, it's clear that Kreyol is the most pervasive language in the personal lives of Haitians, and as Faltis's socialization mismatch hypothesis states, a child achieves more linguistically when language patterns used in the home mirror those used in school.

In my estimation, French also might not come easily because of the way in which it is taught. I have seen the government-issued textbooks and have heard the children reading aloud dutifully and mechanically in French (littérature expressive and rote work rule the day). They are following the rules they've been taught about recitation and, although their French pronunciation was beautiful, the idea of approaching a text this way was so painful that I had to stop and ask them if they could tell me about what they had just read.

Would I have gotten the same blank stares if the children had been reading in Kreyol? Probably not. Or if they'd been studying French in an environment with very different language teaching methodologies? I don't know. I would have loved to bring these students into my class for a year to find out. I agree, as stated in previous comments, that children are highly capable of functioning in multiple languages, particularly if their peers are also proficient and use the language in school. I refuse to believe that Haitian children are somehow inferior in their capacity to acquire a second language. It sounds simplistic, but perhaps learning French simply isn't a fun endeavor for some?

I believe that, regardless of whether French is still favored in schools for years to come or Kreyol replaces it as the primary language of instruction, we should probe further into the effectiveness of the Haitian educational system itself, which, according to the teachers I spoke with, includes antiquated components of the Napoleonic model. They told me they were desperate for modernization. I wouldn't dare suggest that the "American" way of teaching language should supplant what is already in place, but perhaps there are ways to respectfully introduce some techniques that work for us to see if they'd work for teachers Haiti.

My hope is to follow up on my project by producing books which include both French and Kreyol text, as well as audiobook versions. I am inspired to learn Kreyol and humbled by the process, because it isn't easy, despite the fact that I teach French! As a cornerstone of Haitian culture, I highly respect the Kreyol language and only wish it were more widely spoken.

*For those interested, my French books initiative, which is far less academic than the projects Dr. Degraff has conducted but allowed my students to understand the value of service learning, was publicized here: USA TODAY http://t.co/R4MEQ2Tgq2 and here (Huffington Post) http://t.co/BFkROdwLYY

this is the best thing that could happen because speaking french was a luxury for some Haitian folks

Reprinted with permission of MIT News