This study investigates the practicalities of the instructional language policy and the role that English plays in multilingual classrooms at the lower primary level. The research aims to find answers to the following questions. First, in a multilingual lower primary classroom where some teachers and some pupils do not understand the major local…

Mother tongue-based education has been central to the promotion of early literacy skills in many multilingual contexts of the Global South. However, learners in such environments may face significant linguistic challenges when changing language of instruction during schooling. In particular, the linguistic distance between mother tongue and…

Nigeria and Ghana are two Anglophone countries in West Africa that have adopted the teaching of the French language in their education systems because of their proximity to francophone countries and the necessity for regional integration. Whereas the language has gained some official status in the national curriculum (National Policy on Education)…

Issues of national language are very complex in Africa because of the multi-lingual situation on the continent. The situation is even more severe when a country attempts to choose one of the indigenous languages as its national language. Most African nations have peacefully chosen foreign languages as their official languages but there is always a…