The multilingual impact of mother tongue programs: Evidence from a randomized control trial in Kenya

• In Event: Languages and literacies: What lessons for theory and policy from practice?

Abstract

Evidence from many countries, language groups and time periods have shown that reading comprehension is most easily achieved when learning to read is taught in a child’s mother tongue. This includes evidence from Kenya, the site of this study. However, the evidence in Sub-Saharan Africa is sparse in the area of rigorously evaluated mother tongue programs that take place at medium to large scale and are implemented in a real policy environment that is not always well suited for mother tongue reading implementation. Kenya has had a mother tongue language policy for nearly 40 years but the majority of classroom instruction is in English or Kiswahili, and children are seldom taught to read in their mother tongue. A randomized controlled trial design under the larger Primary Mathematics and Reading (PRIMR) study compared the impact of two mother tongue literacy programs against the impact of an effective literacy program not implemented in mother tongue. Student learning impacts are compared in mother tongue, as well as in English and Kiswahili, the languages that families often use to determine whether a program is effective. Questions related to the acceptance of a mother tongue program in multi-lingual environments are examined, as well as how a mother tongue program can be effective when teachers and instructional supervisors are not always speakers of the mother tongue.

Author

• Benjamin Piper, RTI International