Micro-level planning for a Papua New Guinean elementary school classroom: \"copycat\" planning and language ideologies

Current Issues in Language Planning

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Micro-level planning for a Papua New Guinean elementary school classroom: “copycat” planning and language ideologies Cindy Schneider To cite this article: Cindy Schneider (2015) Micro-level planning for a Papua New Guinean elementary school classroom: “copycat” planning and language ideologies, Current Issues in Language Planning, 16:3, 335-354, DOI: 10.1080/14664208.2015.1042828 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14664208.2015.1042828

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Date: 30 November 2015, At: 16:17

Current Issues in Language Planning, 2015 Vol. 16, No. 3, 335–354, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14664208.2015.1042828

Micro-level planning for a Papua New Guinean elementary school classroom: “copycat” planning and language ideologies Cindy Schneider*

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School of Behavioural, Cognitive, and Social Sciences, University of New England, Armidale, NSW, Australia (Received 3 July 2013; accepted 15 April 2015)

In the early 1990s, the government of Papua New Guinea (PNG) enacted educational reform. It officially abandoned its English-only policy at elementary school level, in favour of community languages. In response, the Kairak community of East New Britain Province developed a vernacular literacy programme. This paper, based on original fieldwork research in PNG, assesses the viability of Kairak vernacular literacy in the context of the community’s broader literacy practices. While mother tongue literacy is generally regarded by linguists and policy-makers as the best-case scenario, it can pose a variety of practical challenges in the classroom. This paper examines the community’s micro-planning processes and cautions that the agents of micro planning must be wary of applying, wholesale, the policies of neighbouring communities to their own situation (“copycat” language planning (LP)). It also discusses the influence that language ideologies (vis-à-vis the vernacular, Tok Pisin, and English) have on LP. The paper concludes by recommending that in rural elementary schools with mixed linguistic populations, PNG’s (northern) lingua franca, Tok Pisin, may in fact be a more sensible choice for the teaching of initial literacy. Keywords: copycat language planning; micro-level language planning; Tok Pisin; vernacular literacy; literacy practices; language ideologies

Introduction It has long been argued that students are most likely to excel academically when they receive initial literacy tuition in their mother tongue (cf. Cummins, 2001; Siegel, 1997). Language and literacy instruction in the mother tongue facilitates a transition in later years to subsequent instruction in another language, normally the official language spoken by the country’s elite. In postcolonial contexts, the official language typically reflects the linguistic legacy left behind by former colonising rulers of that country (English, French, German, Spanish, or another colonial language). Over the course of several decades, the government of Papua New Guinea (PNG) enacted a gradual “about-face” in educational language policy. The English-only strategy originally set in place by Australian colonial administrators eventually gave way to a programme that favoured community languages (either a vernacular or a local lingua franca) in elementary schools from Preparatory (“Prep”, Kindergarten) through to Year 2

*Email: [email protected] © 2015 Taylor & Francis

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(Gerry, 2011; Litteral, 2000). This paper discusses how one small PNG community, the Kairak community, has incorporated these reforms at the elementary school level, balancing them against an additional policy requirement that students be ready for English-only instruction from Year 3. This introduction provides a background on PNG’s language policy, the languages spoken in the Kairak community, the development of vernacular literacy in the area, and local literacy practices. The next section discusses two theoretical frameworks underpinning this paper: agency in micro planning, and language ideologies. Then the local vernacular literacy programme in one PNG elementary school is reviewed. Many practical problems are evident, which could be minimised or eliminated if Tok Pisin were instead used for teaching literacy. The subsequent section explores the alternative possibility of using Tok Pisin at elementary school, and discusses how language ideologies and a “copycat” approach may have influenced micro-level language planning (LP). The paper concludes by cautioning that local-language policies must be tailored to the individual community’s sociolinguistic and literacy context; a “one-size-fits-all” LP strategy defeats the purpose of what micro planning is all about.

The language policy Starting in the 1980s, literacy teaching across PNG became increasingly decentralised. While national government policy formally sanctioned English-only education, at the provincial level, changes were afoot. Informal vernacular education preschools began to spring up in provinces throughout the country. Their popularity spread at a grassroots level and began to attract serious attention from government officials in the capital, who were concerned with the high rate of school attrition. The National Literacy and Awareness Council was established in 1989, and by 1991, educational policy in favour of the vernacular began to be formulated. By 1994, 200 languages across PNG were being taught in 2309 vernacular preschool programmes (Siegel, 1997). In a sense, then, macro policy lagged behind local practice: the newly developed policy simply reflected a shift that was already in place in many communities. The paradigm changed from an “English-only” policy to a system that recognised the value of vernacular literacy in community languages. In an article on micro-level LP within community micro contexts, Baldauf (2006) points out that local social practices should indeed inform policy. In PNG, this has happened. The National Department of Education (NDOE) states that “every person has the right to become literate in the language he or she knows best” (2001, p. 1). Space is made in the curriculum for PNG’s 800+ indigenous languages, its two official “languages of convenience” (i.e. Tok Pisin and Hiri Motu), and its official “language of international communication and commerce” (i.e. English). A Ministerial Policy Statement (No. 3/99) states: At the elementary school level, (preparatory to elementary 2), … the language of instruction is completely in the children’s vernacular language, or the community lingua franca, with an introduction in oral English at the end of elementary 2. Children will leave elementary school literate in their first language. (NDOE, n.d. quoted by Gerry, 2011, p. 82)

Although the above Statement indicates that either a vernacular or a community lingua franca (e.g. Tok Pisin) can be taught at school, a greater emphasis is placed on literacy in the vernacular over literacy in the lingua franca. The last sentence in the above quote would seem to highlight this preference. The reason for this surely stems from the way recent language policy has developed in PNG – at the local level, favouring indigenous languages.

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Part of the vernacular literacy policy is the requirement that Class 2 teachers should prepare students for English study so that by Class 3, the beginning of Primary School, the language of instruction can be completely in English. This transition to English is considered to be very important because, as previously mentioned, English is the country’s “official language of international communication and commerce”, as quoted in the extract below.

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The Independent State of Papua New Guinea recognises English as its official language of international communication and commerce, with Tok Pisin and Hiri Motu as official languages of convenience. The use of these three languages shall be based on their intelligibility, appropriateness and acceptability in any given domain of communication. (http://www. pngbuai.com/000general/info-policies/PNG-policy-info-com.html; accessed 23/12/2014)

Thus, the PNG government has instituted two macro policies vis-à-vis language in education: (1) vernacular education for the first three years of school, starting from Prep; (2) English-only education thereafter. Language communities value indigenous languages for their cultural heritage. They also feel that competency in English provides opportunities for individual scholastic, economic, and social advancement. In contrast, Tok Pisin is in an unenviable policy position relative to both indigenous languages and English. As an English-lexified creole serving as a lingua franca in New Britain, New Ireland, and most other provinces in PNG, Tok Pisin is widely spoken and understood. It is not associated with any single linguistic or cultural group. This not only contributes to its strength as a lingua franca, but it also means that it does not receive the same sort of nurturing that vernacular languages receive. Nor is it a language of aspiration, like English is. Tok Pisin, as mentioned above, is truly regarded as a “language of convenience”.

Local languages and environment PNG has over 800 indigenous language communities. This paper focuses on just one of them, which is Kairak. The Kairaks live in the interior of the Gazelle Peninsula on the island of New Britain. Figure 1 shows that Kairak is part of a larger family of Baining languages which also includes Ura, Kaket, Mali, and Simbali. Situated close to the Kairaks is a community of Taulil speakers. Taulil is thought to be related to the Baining languages. Butam, also shown in Figure 1, is now extinct (Stebbins, 2011). Taulil and the Baining languages are classified as Papuan. While the inland part of the Gazelle Peninsula is inhabited primarily by Papuan speakers, there are also Austronesian languages such as Kuanua spoken in the area. However, the presence of Austronesian speakers inland is unusual; they mostly live along the northern coastline of the Gazelle Peninsula. Kairak has about 900 speakers, and it is still transmitted to children as a mother tongue (Lewis, Simons, & Fennig, 2013). However, its vitality is challenged by the close proximity of other significant language communities. For example, from the “Salem” homestead, a centre within the Kairak community, one can walk to the Taulil-speaking vicinity in about 10 minutes. Likewise, a neighbouring Baining language, Ura, is spoken in Gaulim, a village that can be reached by foot in about 15 minutes. Furthermore, a few Kuanua-speaking families (Austronesian in descent and referred to as the “Tolai”) bought land in the area several decades back, and they continue to sustain their own language and culture in the midst of the larger Papuan-speaking environment. Intermarriage between Kairaks and members of neighbouring communities is not uncommon. Men also

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Figure 1. Languages of the Gazelle Peninsula, PNG. Source: Van Der Mark and Stebbins (2008). Reproduced with permission (personal communication, January 7, 2015).

marry women from other provinces around the country, and the women come to live with the men’s family. Some children born of these mixed marriages do learn Kairak from one parent. However, in cases where neither parent has a good understanding of the other parent’s mother tongue, they speak Tok Pisin to each other and to their children. Thus, some children in the area are learning Tok Pisin as their mother tongue, rather than the vernacular. Gaulim, which as previously mentioned is adjacent to the Kairak-speaking area, is home to the Gaulim Teacher’s College. This is a national institution that attracts teachers and trainee teachers from all over the country. Again, these individuals, many with spouses and young children, add to the linguistic melting pot of the region. The complexity of the local linguistic scene is reflected not only in people’s homes and on the streets but also in schools, churches, and at public gatherings, where Kairak, Ura, Taulil, Kuanua, Tok Pisin, English, and any combination of these can be heard in conversations, speeches, and sermons. In addition, many people own TV sets and radios, with broadcasts in English and Tok Pisin. In other words, the linguistic climate could be characterised as highly multilingual at both an individual and a societal level. The development of vernacular literacy in the area In contrast to the community’s easy and “organic” spoken multilingualism, vernacular literacy has developed in a piecemeal fashion, very much dependent upon the contribution of outsiders. For example, Kairak’s close geographical and linguistic neighbour, Ura, has received literary attention since the 1980s, when missionaries moved into the area and began to study the language. In 2008, they published the Ura translation of four chapters of the New Testament. The book launch for the New Testament in Gaulim attracted a good deal of fanfare, and copies sold out very quickly. Christianity is a mainstay of this community, central to its social life, and so Ura speakers were thrilled to see the New Testament printed in their own language. However, it became apparent in ensuing months that very few people could actually read the New Testament in the vernacular. Subsequently,

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there was a clamour to become literate in Ura. Up until this point, there had been no reason to read or write in the vernacular. Two members of the community set up a vernacular literacy school in 2010 for Uraspeaking adults, and it has been very successful. The school’s student base doubled between 2010 and 2011, and students and teachers alike view it as a catalyst for personal development (personal communication, Hane Ephraim and Kesia Aminio, September 20, 2011). Although the founders’ original objective was to teach Ura literacy so that students could read the Bible, the school’s mission has since expanded. It now also teaches literacy in Tok Pisin and English, as well as numeracy. The development of vernacular literacy in the Kairak community is unfolding in quite a different manner. A major point of difference is that no missionary linguists have approached the Kairaks to work with them on Bible translation, and there has been no great motivation to read and write in Kairak. Even after the formulation of PNG’s vernacular language policy in 1991, more than a decade passed before steps were taken to develop an orthography for Kairak. Finally in 2002, a 10-day workshop was organised by the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) and funded by the Australian Agency for International Development. It was attended by five Kairak speakers and two non-local SIL consultants. Together they produced the “Kairak Language Spelling Guide Trial”. Workshop participants used the existing orthography from Ura as a model for their own writing system. However, the phonologies of Kairak and Ura differ; other problems also became apparent in the newly devised Kairak alphabet. At a two-day writing workshop in 2008, the community and myself, as their linguistic consultant, amended the 2002 alphabet; we subsequently ironed out residual problems at a one-day workshop in 2011. These improvements to the orthography have enhanced the readability of the language, making it easier for learners to acquire literacy. Such autonomous linguistic considerations are, of course, an important contributing factor to the success or otherwise of a fledgling literacy programme. However, autonomous literacy really constitutes only one part of a much broader mix. There are a variety of other social, demographic, and ideological factors to consider. Taken together, all of these variables impact upon the overall feasibility of the Kairak vernacular literacy programme. Local literacy practices Between 2007 and 2011, I spent eight months with the Kairak community, working with Kairak speakers on the documentation of their language. During this time I spent a good deal of time walking around the area, getting to know as much as possible about the linguistic, social, and environmental context of Kairak speakers. As previously mentioned, I also led two Kairak orthography workshops for school teachers and other interested community members. Thus, my initial observations of literacy practices of individuals and families were informal in nature. I was fascinated by what I noticed and began to systematically record the literacy practices of the community, photographing and filming literacy events as they occurred. The observations are ethnographic and opportunistic: ethnographic, because the literacy events occur in their natural social context; and opportunistic, because I could only note down events as I came across them. The qualitative aspect of the study is supplemented by classroom observations at elementary and primary schools, and literacy interviews. In September 2011, I interviewed 15 people in the community about individual and institutional literacy practices. Eleven individuals report on their own reading and writing activities; another four

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interviews are with representatives of institutions: a nursing sister at a local health clinic; a pastor of an evangelical church; and a teacher and a student at an adult literacy school. Literacy in the Kairak area can be characterised as both limited and unconventional in comparison to how it manifests in western countries. Reading and writing do not feature very much at all in the lives of most local people, who make a living from subsistence farming and small agricultural enterprises. If people have any printed material in their homes, it is typically the Bible or other religious literature. Kulick and Stroud (1993) conducted a comprehensive survey of reading materials of households in a Sepik (PNG) village and similarly observed that religious literature predominated in that Melanesian community. In the Kairak area, English Bibles are common, as are Tok Pisin Bibles and of course the four chapters of the New Testament in Ura. There are also a number of hymn books printed in Kuanua. In homes with children attending high school, students may also have copies of school textbooks. (Yet less than half (46%) of all children will complete grade 8 (Thompson, 2003).) Aside from religious literature and school books, people read newspapers sold in the Gazelle Peninsula’s major service town, Kokopo (reached by minibus in one hour). Many citizens also own mobile phones, and they send text messages to avoid the high cost of a phone call. Reading and writing activities thus tend to be functionally driven. There is no tradition of sitting down and reading a novel for pleasure, for example. For recreation and relaxation, people instead gather together in social groups; individual reading does not figure into this routine. Thus, overall engagement with literacy in the community, at the individual level, is generally quite low. At the community level there are few displays of public literacy. There are no advertising billboards and few public notices of any sort. Public notices are made by hand. Figure 2 is an example of signage posted up at a local cocoa wholesaler. This sign is typical of the unconventional nature of locally produced writing, where English words are embedded within Tok Pisin syntactic structures. Another example of code-mixing between English and Tok Pisin is shown in Figure 3. As with Figure 2, code-mixing is a salient feature in this writing, and both examples highlight the important role of Tok Pisin in local reading and writing. The examples demonstrate the way English is written as the “target” language: this comes as no surprise, since English is the language of aspiration and advancement in PNG. However, since individuals in the local population have varying degrees of exposure to and confidence in English, the Englishspelt words are embedded within the syntactic structures of Tok Pisin. This strategy thus constitutes a sort of compromise between the “desirable” (English) and the “accessible” (Tok Pisin). Tok Pisin is a language that people feel comfortable using with an open readership because it straddles the wide gulf between English, a high status language that is inaccessible to many, and the local vernaculars, which are accessible only to limited pockets of speaker populations. Indeed, I have seen letters from federal government representatives to local community leaders that were written in Tok Pisin – not English – in order to ensure clear communication. This is ironic, considering that from a policy perspective, the value of Tok Pisin as a written language is barely acknowledged. On the other hand, Kairak is not written in public spaces: many people do not speak it, and of those who do, most do not know how to read or write it. At any rate, Kairak has no tradition of literacy. However, it is the focus language of vernacular literacy instruction in local elementary schools.

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Figure 2.

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Cocoa wholesaler: prices offered and hours of operation.

Theoretical framework This study draws together two major theoretical frameworks: agency in micro planning, and language ideologies.

Agency in micro planning The LP literature over the past couple of decades makes a distinction between micro- and macro-level LP. Macro LP was the focus of early LP studies (cf. Baldauf, 2006) and refers to broad-scale planning for languages at a national level, by government agencies. People in positions of power, for example, government officials or consultants, plan policy on behalf of the general population.

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Figure 3.

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Code-mixing between English and Tok Pisin: “weekly church programme”.

Macro planning can be contrasted with micro planning. Macro planners provide the framework for language policy, while in micro LP, adjustments needed to implement macro policies are made at the ground level, by local people (Liddicoat & Taylor-Leech, 2014). Alexander (1992) coined the term “language planning from below” to refer to micro LP. Kaplan and Baldauf (1997) describe micro LP as a “bottom-up” planning, or “non-governmental planning”. Kamwendo (2005) refers to it as a “grassroots-initiated type of LP”. While Liddicoat and Taylor-Leech (2014) note the inherent variability across local contexts in micro-level LP, the common thread unifying such variability is the presence of local people drawing from local resources, in order to meet LP objectives. These individuals are usually intimately connected with the local languages and environment they are planning for. Thus, the notion of agency – who the planners are – is a distinguishing component of micro LP (cf. Baldauf, 2006), and is an important factor in the current study. Table 1 contrasts agency at the macro and micro levels for language policy development, planning, and resourcing for the Kairak community. “Policy Development” in Table 1 refers to plans or statements of intent, in contrast to “Planning”, which refers to practical implementation of such plans. “Resourcing/Support” refers to material and services available to assist in the implementation of policy decisions. Table 1 suggests that macro LP is largely limited to planning for and resourcing broad initiatives such as English language support. However, policy-making, planning, and resourcing at the macro level do not necessarily translate into equivalent support at the micro level. Micro planners are expected to tailor macro policies to the needs of their local community. Micro planners must decide which vernacular to teach. Then they devise an alphabet for the vernacular and produce appropriate educational resources in the language. In other words, the policy and planning burden placed upon local communities is significant, while national institutional support and resourcing to facilitate these decisions are minimal.

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Table 1. Agency and resourcing in macro and micro LP. Agency in … Policy development Planning

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Resourcing/ support

Macro level

Micro level (Kairak community)

National government initiative: vernacular/lingua franca to be taught in elementary school, followed by education in English thereafter National government: development and provision of English language materials

Local initiative: decision about which vernacular to teach in elementary school (Kairak)

Institutional support at the national level: provision of English language materials; advice from government employees and outside consultants

All vernacular language development initiated by local people: orthography design, teaching materials, etc. Community-driven support: homespun translations of English language materials; ad hoc consultations with outsiders such as SIL and visiting linguists

Source: Based on Baldauf (2005, 2006).

For language communities that had developed vernacular preschools on their own initiative in the years before the vernacular literacy policy was devised at the macro level in the early 1990s, the task of literacy planning and development is perhaps less onerous because such communities have already reflected upon their linguistic priorities. But for the like of the Kairak community that have engaged in micro planning simply in reaction to macro planning, this job is more significant. Local teachers and community leaders, with little or no experience in such matters, would no doubt look to communities with more experience as a source of inspiration. This was the case with the Kairak community, who turned to their more experienced Ura-speaking neighbours for guidance in their own LP decisions. The economist Keynes (1936) has suggested that people’s decisions are influenced by those around them. For example, we may choose to patronise a particular restaurant on the basis of how popular we perceive it to be (Banerjee, 1992). Other publications on organisational behaviour make similar assertions. Fulk, Schmitz, and Steinfield (1990) claim that “vicarious learning” occurs through “behaviour modelling”. That is, people observe what their peers do, and if the behaviour has positive outcomes, then the observer may well imitate it. Alternatively, should the behaviour be deemed to lead to unsuccessful outcomes, then this behaviour may be avoided. According to Bem’s (1970, pp. 79–88) Modelling Theory, people “are heavily influenced by the views of groups with which we identify, whose approval we want, or we regard as authority”. In other words, if Person or Group A views Person or Group B in a positive light, they are inclined to imitate their actions. While these theories are constructed within a framework of economic modelling and human behaviour analysis, it could be argued that they have equal validity in the context of LP. For example, it is well established in sociolinguistics that we tend to speak more like those with whom we identify, and less like those from whom we wish to distance ourselves (Giles, Coupland, & Coupland, 1991). In a discussion of LP in Singapore, Zhao and Liu (2007) note that the linguistic behaviour of influential citizens provides a model that the rest of the population is quick to imitate. Along similar lines, within a micro LP framework, it seems reasonable to argue that one group of speakers would look at the micro LP initiatives of their neighbours, and be influenced by what they consider to be successes or failures. This theoretical position is relevant to the discussion of “copycat” micro planning (explored later in this paper).

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Language ideologies Language ideologies as a theoretical construct inform the current study. According to Makoe and McKinney (2014, p. 659), language ideologies “refer to the sets of beliefs, values and cultural frames that continually circulate in society, informing the ways in which language is conceptualised and represented as well as how it is used”. Language ideologies are rooted in individuals’ culturally shaped attitudes towards and beliefs about the nature of a language, how it should be used, who should use it, what its value is, what its origin is, and where its future lies (Curdt-Christiansen, 2009; Jourdan & Angeli, 2014). Any given language within a society, be it a world language, a national lingua franca, or a local indigenous language, can therefore be assessed in the light of these criteria, with the resultant formation of ideology. In turn, the relationship of these languages to each other within a multilingual state forms part of the community’s broader language ideology. Language ideology governs which variety speakers choose to use in any given sociolinguistic context. While the influence of language ideology may play out in macro-level LP (because prevailing attitudes about the purpose of a language affect its official status), its influence is equally observed in local contexts. When individuals are compelled to make practical language choices, the underlying ideology trumps overtly expressed language ideals. In Jamaica, for example, the use of Jamaican Creole continues to persist in many classrooms despite its low status relative to Standard Jamaican English. Teachers condemn its usage by students but then use it themselves because, they say, it is the only way to communicate effectively with students. This contradiction between attitudes on the one hand and actual behaviour on the other belies a complex set of variables that governs Jamaicans’ beliefs about the role of Jamaican Creole vis-à-vis Standard Jamaican English (Nero, 2014). Makihara and Schieffelin (2007) note the importance of the wantok (“one talk” = someone who speaks the same language) ideology with regard to indigenous languages in PNG and the Solomon Islands. In countries such as these, where hundreds of vernaculars are spoken, choosing to use one’s own vernacular with a wantok implies the existence of mutual familial, clan, and ethnolinguistic ties. Especially in the presence of mixed language groups, where a wider lingua franca such as Tok Pisin could instead be used, the use of the indigenous language suggests that there is in-group social solidarity between speakers. It is probably safe to say that, across the board, speakers of PNG’s indigenous languages conceptualise the vernacular as an important part of their individual and group identity. But community ideologies about the place of the vernacular in education most certainly vary from one language group to the next. Obviously, communities that, in the 1980s, spearheaded grassroots efforts to teach their vernacular at school have a clear belief that their language should be taught in school and written down. Yet in other communities, such as the Kairak community, that have simply reacted to macro policies on vernacular literacy, it is less clear that speakers strongly identify with their vernacular as a written language. Classroom and community literacy practices in Kairak, and how they conflict with ideology, are outlined in the next section. The Kairak vernacular literacy programme: a ground-level perspective We have previously described the nature of literacy in the Kairak community: non-habituated, in the sense that it is not a normalised activity; hybridised and aspirational, in that writers tend to code mix, embedding English words into Tok Pisin syntactic structures. These community practices are in stark contrast to the way literacy is presented and practised inside elementary school classrooms.

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Teachers’ responses to competing macro policy objectives As explained in the Introduction, PNG’s educational language policy promotes vernacular literacy for the first three years of elementary school (Prep, Class 1, and Class 2). Once students enter primary school in Year 3, however, they are meant to read, write, and converse completely in English. The problem with such a timetable is that it does not take into account the fact that local children do not know English. Families in the community do not speak English amongst themselves, nor do neighbours speak to each other in English. If two strangers meet and they do not know each other’s vernacular, then they speak to each other in Tok Pisin, not English. English is spoken in a tokenistic fashion in public domains, but that is the extent of its usage at a local level. It is therefore unrealistic to expect children to move from a vernacular-medium classroom to an English-medium one with no time factored in for a transition from the vernacular to English. This problem is also noted in a UNESCO report on vernacular education in PNG (Bühmann & Trudell, 2008). Elementary teachers in the Kairak area, as elsewhere around the country, therefore face a difficult dilemma. On the one hand, they need to promote vernacular literacy. But on the other, they need to groom students for an English academic environment starting in primary school. Therefore, the two macro language policies, which on paper come across as complementary, are in practice conflicting. In Kenya, where education in the vernacular up to Class 3 is followed by English medium of instruction from Class 4 onwards, teachers face a similar dilemma (Jones, 2014). The adaptation of macro policies to local situations varies by school and individual teacher (Baldauf, 2006; Jones, 2014). Jones (2014, p. 23) notes that teachers “are strongly influenced by their own beliefs or ideologies; that is, their beliefs about languages, their use, and the way they should be taught”. At The Kairak Elementary School in Malabonga, the Prep and Class 2 teachers are committed to implementing the macro policy of vernacular literacy (even though “vernacular literacy” for many of their students could be more accurately termed “second language literacy” – see below). Both teachers had been involved in one or more of the alphabet development workshops mentioned in the Introduction. They painstakingly produce handmade Kairak resources for display in their classrooms. I watched both teachers give lessons on the Kairak alphabet, contrasting it explicitly with the English alphabet in terms of number and types of letters, and the sounds that each letter makes. The Prep teacher engages students in group sessions where students together read aloud from a book written in Kairak. Students also write Kairak words in their notebooks around a themed lesson. The reading and writing sessions are scaffolded by lessons in metalinguistic awareness, including the examination of word meanings and syllable structure. Lessons in language and mathematics revolve around certain themes such as food, water, transport, and so forth. Written and oral language used to support these activities is in both Kairak and Tok Pisin. The teacher mostly speaks in Kairak, but switches to Tok Pisin from time to time. However, she also reviews the English alphabet with her young students, contrasting it with the Kairak one. As mentioned above, the Class 2 teacher is also heavily invested in Kairak literacy. This particular individual has in fact been the catalyst for the development of Kairak literacy resources and has inspired other teachers at Malabonga and at other Kairak-medium elementary schools to follow her lead. Since Class 2 is, in theory, still a Kairak-medium classroom, there are a number of Kairak resources on display. There are also English resources with translations into Kairak. However, the Year 2 teacher is well aware that her students will be entering an Englishmedium classroom in less than a year. To accommodate this, her language of focus is English. She teaches the English alphabet and works on English metalinguistic awareness

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by focusing on the sounds and syllables of English words. Like the Prep teacher, she teaches mathematics and other subjects around a variety of themes. She focuses on English words and phrases, explaining them in Tok Pisin. In fact, the Year 2 teacher uses Tok Pisin extensively in her teaching of English. So again, although Tok Pisin is mostly invisible in educational language policy, its use is instrumental in the transition from the vernacular to English. And while this teacher certainly subscribes to the macro policy of vernacular literacy, her teaching is also heavily influenced by PNG’s English language policy. This teacher is trying to juggle both policies. The Class 1 teacher had not attended the Kairak orthography workshops, and expressed no particular interest in vernacular literacy. He has Tok Pisin and English resources on display in his classroom. This teacher reports that he focuses mainly on teaching reading and writing in Tok Pisin, and also a little bit of English. Like the Class 2 teacher, his primary language of instruction is Tok Pisin. Children tend to speak to each other in Kairak (with the exception of non-Kairak students; see the following section). This teacher therefore appears to resist the implementation of the vernacular literacy policy, but makes some attempt at promoting the English language. However, he embraces neither policy, preferring to instead focus mainly on Tok Pisin. Baldauf (2006) discusses cases of “micro implementation” of macro policies, as well as “micro resistance to implementation” of macro policies. The labels are fairly self-explanatory. The former implies cooperation in the implementation of policies made by central language planners. The latter implies some degree of resistance to macro policy. In theory, both of PNG’s macro policies should complement one another. In reality, at the micro level, the benefits of vernacular literacy are tempered by the need to transition to English. Elementary school teachers therefore face difficult decisions about which policy to comply with or resist at any given stage of their students' educations. Children’s L1 As explained in the Introduction, the Kairak community shares its corner of the Gazelle Peninsula with speakers of many other indigenous languages including closely related Ura, Taulil (another Papuan language), Kuanua (an Austronesian language), and others. Kairak speakers live together in loose groupings, geographically interspersed with speakers of other language groups. The Kairak Elementary School in Malabonga happens to be situated right on the boundary with the Taulil area. Therefore, a substantial number of children enrolled in the Kairak school are actually not Kairak speakers at all, but Taulil speakers. In 2011, approximately half of the enrolled students did not come from Kairak families (personal communication, Rody John, September 12, 2011). It is ironic that a language policy designed to provide children with the advantage of mother tongue literacy instead offers literacy in another indigenous language that half of the children do not speak. Non-Kairak students have effectively traded an “English as a Second Language” classroom for a “Kairak as a Second Language” one. Of course, a vernacular literacy programme is useful only for children who speak that vernacular, and not very helpful for children who do not speak it. What this situation suggests is that the benefits of mother tongue education may be well articulated in a general sense, but that these advantages have perhaps been overstated and misconstrued at the local level. There may be a number of reasons for this. One may be that local teachers, aware of the national policy of vernacular literacy, are simply applying the policy as instructed: that is, they understand the details of the policy,

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but not the rationale behind it. In this case the local teachers, not trained to interpret policy from an analytical perspective, are simply putting the policy into place without a great deal of scrutiny. This means that schools situated in the Kairak area teach literacy in Kairak. If it happens to be the case that some of the children do not speak the language they are meant to learn to read and write, then so be it. From a policy perspective, they are doing their job, which is to provide children with an education in a mother tongue – even if it is not the child’s mother tongue. Some non-Kairak parents, possessing limited or no literacy skills themselves, may not be aware of what their children are doing in school: although they send their children there, they do not discuss school matters in the home. However, it is more likely that they are aware that their children are studying Kairak but choose to send their children to that school anyway. For some, it may simply be a matter of convenience, if the school is located very near to home. Others prefer the Kairak school because it is perceived as offering better value for children than neighbouring Taulil schools (personal communication, Saraim Kolis, September 9, 2011). Similarly at Gaulim Elementary, in the Ura-speaking area, many students do not speak Ura. However, their teacher says that they learn fast (personal communication, September 13, 2011). Clearly, the language of instruction does not appear to be a deciding factor for at least some parents. It seems that they do not feel that their children will be significantly disadvantaged from not learning literacy in their own vernacular. Indeed, parents are important stakeholders in micro LP, and their influence should not be underestimated (cf. Bühmann & Trudell, 2008). Pakir (1994) gives an account of LP in Singapore where parents were essentially the “invisible planners”: by choosing to send their children to English-medium schools, they influenced macro planners’ decision to make English the medium of instruction in all schools. Such “non-deliberate” planning contrasts with “deliberate” macro planning (such as the Singapore government’s “Speak Mandarin Campaign”). As in Singapore, “invisible LP” seems to be influencing the classroom language at the Elementary School in Malabonga. Because half of the children are learning Kairak as a second language, classes cannot be fully conducted in the vernacular because many students simply would not understand. A substantial amount of interaction between teachers and students therefore must be in Tok Pisin. In my own observation, teachers use Tok Pisin to conduct “official business”, and then add further commentary in Kairak. Such code-switching is seamless, and a natural extension of life outside of the classroom. So while official policy envisages a monolingual setting of either the vernacular or English, the classroom reality is one of either Kairak/Tok Pisin bilingualism, Tok Pisin/English bilingualism, or Kairak/Tok Pisin/English trilingualism. Full circle: from classroom back to community Once they leave the classroom, Kairak schoolchildren have no outlet for reading the vernacular. There is no literature, religious or otherwise, produced in Kairak, nor is there any public signage in the vernacular. A 2011 survey of 11 Kairak speakers from different parts of the community about their literacy practices revealed that Kairak literacy was evident in just two domains: (1) in school; (2) in text messages, with the use of basic expressions such as “good morning”, “are you okay?”, and “where are you?” This then raises the question as to the intrinsic value of teaching vernacular literacy to children who cannot use it outside of school. Coulmas and Guerini (2012) note that if a community has no tradition of reading and writing, and there is no way to apply vernacular literacy to one’s everyday life, then the acquired skill has little value. Liddicoat (2005)

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cautions that if vernacular literacy is not viable outside of school-based contexts, learning it can even be counterproductive. If study of the vernacular essentially follows a “road to nowhere”, then students may resent having to learn it and may develop negative attitudes towards the vernacular. Lynch (1979, p. 14) also cautions:

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It has been clearly shown that, unless literacy is functional, new literates frequently, and very rapidly revert to illiteracy. By functional literacy I mean, very simply, that the new skills of reading and writing must be useful, and used, and used often in a variety of contexts.

Discussion Language policy and planning in PNG, at both macro and micro levels, is an ongoing process. The following sections reflect upon the current situation in the light of our theoretical framework, and discuss how lessons learned here may better inform decisions that will have to be made in the future.

“Copycat” micro planning and the need for guidance We have outlined some of the practical challenges faced by the local community in their implementation of a Kairak vernacular literacy programme. Some of these obstacles could have been reduced or avoided if a Tok Pisin literacy programme had instead been developed. If the community had considered the situation carefully, they would have noted, for starters, the obvious problem of offering vernacular literacy in just a single language, to the exclusion of a sizable minority of speakers of another language attending the same school. In fact, it is not evident that the community took a truly agentive role in micro planning the elementary school curriculum. In the absence of their own strong opinions on the matter, the Kairak community would have been heavily influenced by the activity of their Ura-speaking neighbours. They could see that missionaries had already spent time in the Ura area, had developed an alphabet for the Ura language, and were working on an Ura Bible translation. Kairak speakers wanted the same thing for their own language community. So, they reasoned, the first step towards reaching this goal would be the development of a Kairak orthography, and the teaching of Kairak literacy in elementary school. In a sense then, what we see is not a community that has micro planned to tailor their literacy programme to accommodate their own context. Instead, it appears that “copycat” micro planning has occurred. That is, the Kairak community looked to its neighbours as a model for micro planning and decided to adapt the Ura model wholesale into their own elementary schools. This process began in 2002 when the Ura alphabet was adapted to Kairak, and then modified in 2008 and again in 2011 to better meet the needs of Kairak’s phonology. In essence, micro LP for the Kairak community simply mimicked micro planning that was previously observed to have worked for the Ura community. However, the Ura language operates under different conditions from Kairak. It has many more speakers: about 1900, as opposed to just 900 for Kairak. There is therefore double the critical mass of potential readers and writers of Ura, and more children studying Ura in school. Secondly, Ura speakers have their own Bible, which has great appeal to speakers. Kairak speakers have no literacy resources in their language, religious or otherwise, and there is therefore no compelling reason to read or write it. It is important that governments give local planners the support they need to make good decisions. Gerry (2011, p. 84) argues:

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… the current language policy needs to have sub-sections that offer specific guidance for the use of the language of instruction (tok ples [the vernacular], Tok Pisin and English). These guidelines will assist teachers in determining which language(s) should be used at their elementary schools, in both rural and urban schools.

Gerry’s point is worth noting; du Plessis (2010) observes that most accounts of “LP from below” concern micro-level planning for individual varieties. However, he gives an account of micro planning in the Free State Province of South Africa not just for a single language, but to facilitate communication across a range of language groups. Where macro-level policy provided no guidance, micro planners stepped in to redress the gap. This can only happen if local planners first recognise the gap. In the Kairak community, it seems that local planners were focused on LP for their particular language – in this case, Kairak. When planning for language use in the elementary schools, they did not consider the issue of mixed L1 classrooms because they did not receive the higher level institutional support that they needed for their planning. The utility of Tok Pisin What is remarkable about PNG’s language policy is that while it assigns particular importance to vernacular languages on the one hand, and to English on the other, it takes very little notice of Tok Pisin, other than to acknowledge it somewhat dismissively as a “language of convenience”. Litteral (n.d.) and Dutton (1976) offer alternative views of Tok Pisin as a regional lingua franca and a facilitator of modernisation. Tok Pisin is spoken by virtually everyone, at least in the northern half of New Guinea. In my experience in East New Britain, all children speak at least some Tok Pisin before they go to school. On the other hand, due to the complex network of people from different speech communities living in close proximity to each other, the children living in and around the Kairak area may speak Kairak, but then again they may not. The ideology of Tok Pisin as an inter-group bonding language of low educational utility, and its dismissal by government language planners as a “language of convenience”, has translated into its low rates of implementation in mixed-L1 community classrooms where it would offer students the best chances of literacy and educational success. PNG is not alone in allowing its functionally valuable languages to flounder. Makoe and McKinney (2014) demonstrate that an ideological bias towards English in post-apartheid South Africa means that Zulu suffers a similar fate vis-à-vis English- and Afrikaans-medium education in a Johannesburg primary school. In Jamaica, the Ministry of Education drafted a policy in 2001 that guided transitional bilingualism in the schools from Jamaican Creole to Standard Jamaican English. The policy was never adopted, partly because the Jamaican Parliament refused to accept that Jamaica was a bilingual country (Nero, 2014). Tok Pisin literacy is, however, taught in urban centres where students from many different language backgrounds congregate together at elementary school. It is also taught in some regional schools. One elementary school near Gaulim, not far from the Malabonga Elementary School, provides instruction in Tok Pisin literacy. Many of the parents attending the nearby Gaulim Teachers College send their children there. A Grade 3 teacher at Gaulim Primary School with 26 years of teaching experience claims that the best students (those with the fewest problems in transitioning from Elementary to Primary) are those that come from the Tok Pisin-medium school. Her perspective is that it is easier for students to transition from Tok Pisin to English, than from a vernacular to English. She believes that as long as parents speak some Tok Pisin to their children at home,

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the students do not have a problem with reading and writing (personal communication, September 21, 2011). It would perhaps be helpful for language planners to assess the relative benefits of each of the languages that could be potentially taught as a written vernacular at school. Coulmas (2013) provides a useful starting point. He uses a simple table to assess languages as resources. For any given language, he considers the value of that language variety to various “Reference Groups” – those who benefit from the language. “Resources” refer to what kind of value the language in question offers, that is, whether the language is an intellectual, cultural/symbolic resource, etc. In Table 2, I extrapolate from Coulmas’s work to consider not just “language as a resource”, but “literacy in language as a resource”, where the language in question is Kairak. Written Kairak has no role at the world level, but it could potentially have cultural/symbolic value as an indigenous language of PNG. Since there are no liturgical materials in Kairak, it is not a resource for the church. At the clan and individual levels, written Kairak, arguably has intellectual and cultural/symbolic value, since its alphabet reflects its uniqueness vis-à-vis other Baining languages. Writing in Kairak also has social currency, as when individuals include some Kairak in their text messages to each other. Since written Kairak is not used in business transactions, it is not an economic resource. By way of comparison, Table 3 considers literacy in Ura as a resource. The only demonstrable difference from literacy in Kairak is that Ura literacy is a valuable resource for the church. This distinction is quite an important one, because the church is by far the most significant organisation in the community. Ura literacy is also an economic resource for religious organisations, since Ura churchgoers contribute money to these institutions.

Table 2. Literacy in Kairak as a resource. Resources Reference group World Nation Organisation (church) Kairak clan Individual

Intellectual

Cultural/symbolic

Social

Economic

− − − + +

− +? − + +

− − − + +

− − − − −

Source: Adapted from Coulmas (2013).

Table 3. Literacy in Ura as a resource. Resources Reference group World Nation Organisation (church) Ura clan Individual

Intellectual

Cultural/symbolic

Social

Economic

− − + + +

− +? + + +

− − + + +

− − + − −

Source: Adapted from Coulmas (2013).

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Table 4. Literacy in Tok Pisin as a resource. Resources Reference group World Nation Organisation (church) Clan Individual

Intellectual

Cultural/symbolic

Social

Economic

− + + + +

− + + + +

− + + + +

− + + + +

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Source: Adapted from Coulmas (2013).

In contrast to Kairak and Ura, and despite its low overt status and lack of acknowledgement in official contexts, written Tok Pisin is an important resource in most situations, as shown in Table 4. Written Tok Pisin is a valuable resource in all domains of (northern) PNG society, from the national level on down. Tok Pisin is the only language that is well understood across linguistic boundaries and geographical regions. It is used in business, in text messages and personal notes, and its written form symbolises the shared cultural heritage of multilingual PNG. It can also be argued that Tok Pisin is an intellectual resource because it carries a heavy functional load in the classroom: it is unofficially used, both in speaking and writing, to facilitate teaching of the vernacular and English. Outside of the classroom, we have already seen examples of local writing that demonstrate how English language lexicon is scaffolded within Tok Pisin syntactic structures. Tok Pisin is also written in its “pure” form (i.e. not mixed with English) in a variety of contexts. It has been the subject of reference dictionaries and grammars (cf. Dutton & Thomas, 1985; Mihalic, 1957, 1969, 1971; Mihalic & Australian National University, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, 2006; Murphy, 1980; Verhaar, 1995), educational materials, and other reading materials, both religious (such as the Nupela Testamen “New Testament”) and non-religious (such as poetry, creative writing, comic strips, manuals, and the weekly newspaper Wantok) (cf. Zimmermann, 2010). Its omnipresence and functional value at both local and national levels cannot be disputed.

Conclusion PNG’s language policy has two main thrusts: (1) a long-standing macro policy mandating instruction and literacy in English; (2) an additional policy of local-language literacy in the first years of school. Macro planners have a difficult job because they are required to plan for linguistic situations that assume relative homogeneity across communities, and a nondynamic sociolinguistic context. Of course, this is never the case, and this is why micro planning at the local level can be so useful and relevant. However, as Baldauf (2006) points out, who the planners actually are is a question worth asking. Macro planners at the state level would be expected to have some relevant qualification or training for the job. Micro planners do not necessarily have any such training, yet they are compelled to make complex decisions about how languages are to be implemented in their local communities. As Bühmann and Trudell point out in their UNESCO report (2008, p. 21), “ … remote areas have suffered from shortages of educational materials and lack of teacher trainers. Regional inconsistencies between national policy and local implementation may be seen as a consequence … ” Rather than looking at all the evidence and taking an analytical

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approach to LP problems, it would indeed be very natural for a community compelled to make micro-planning decisions to look at seemingly successful strategies that their neighbours have used, and copy them. Micro planners need to be made aware that each context needs to be assessed individually. The alternative, a “one-size-fits-all” micro policy, is really just a macro policy in disguise. The Kairak community is an example of a community that could benefit from planning support and consulting. There are clear advantages in teaching children to read and write in their mother tongue. But in situations where students enter the classroom from a variety of L1 backgrounds, teachers are undersupported, centrally produced vernacular resources are unavailable, and there is little prospect of the vernacular being used outside of the classroom, then Tok Pisin seems like a very attractive second-best option. However, this option may be obscured when macro policy favours mother tongue literacy, and neighbouring communities have implemented vernacular language programmes in their own schools. Another issue that affects decision-making processes at both the macro and micro levels of LP is the prevailing ideology that Tok Pisin is a “bastardised” form of English: at best, second-rate, and at worst, not worthy of being written down. Until this attitude changes, Tok Pisin as a valuable tool for literacy and educational development will likely remain an untapped resource.

Acknowledgements I am grateful to parents, teachers, and everyone else in the Kairak community who welcomed me into their spaces – their homes and schools – and shared their time with me. In particular, Thomas Kalas and Saraim Kolis, and their family, have housed and fed me during my stays in East New Britain Province. Sion Peni has given me key linguistic insights into the Kairak language. I would also like to thank Saraim Kolis and Rody John for spending a lot of time showing me around the Kairak Elementary School at Malabonga.

Disclosure statement No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Funding I would like to acknowledge the financial contribution of La Trobe University and the University of New England in support of this research.

Notes on contributor Cindy Schneider’s research background is in language description and documentation. She spent eight months in PNG, between 2007 and 2011, doing linguistic fieldwork with the Kairak community of East New Britain. Her applied linguistic research focuses on literacy development, literacy practices, language ideologies, LP, and language variation in minority language contexts.

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