English only policy in the classroom, a case study of selected basic schools in Gomoa East district

Abstract

The language current policy of education in Ghana requires that English should be used as the sole medium of instruction (MoI) from Primary 4 onwards, with the native language taught as a subject. However, this policy has not been thoroughly observed and put into practice by teachers and educational administrators. This qualitative study therefore sought to find out the challenges of English only policy in Ghanaian upper primary 4 schools, the strategies employed by teachers in English as medium of instruction (EMI) classrooms to achieve their lesson objectives in P.4., and strategies that can be employed to enhance the use of the English Only in the classrooms. The study was conducted in ten (10) public basic schools in Gomoa East District in the Central Region of Ghana. The researcher found out that the influence of L1 on L2 class, low proficiency and understanding of English by pupils, lack of enforcement of the policy, the environment or locality of the school, lack of in service training for teachers, the early-exit model among others have militated against the use of English as the sole medium of instruction in the public upper primary (P.4) classroom. The researcher observed that the use of teaching aids, code switching, translation, safe-talk, previewing and reviewing were the strategies teachers used in EMI classrooms in the selected schools. It is believed that if we adopt the bottom-up approach, provide textbooks, give effective supervision, give in service training as well as adopting the late-exit transitional bilingual education practice will enhance EMI usage in classrooms.