USA

From:

Ann O’Hear
Learning Center
St Vincent’s Hall, Room 104
Niagara University, NY 14109 USA
ohear@niagara.edu

“I teach and advise on ESL students, and am now more and more being asked to work with students speaking a variety of Caribbean creoles (eg Jamaican, Haitian). I haven’t found any work being done on these by the ESL community, and I am interested in creole grammars (accessible to the non-specialist) and in any work on problems faced by creole speakers when asked to communicate in standard US English.”

France

From:

Institut d’Etudes Créoles et
Francophones
29 ave Robert Schuman
13621 Aix-en-Provence FRANCE
etudcreo@newsup.univ-mrs.fr

“Nous sommes toujours interessés (particulièrement Robert Chaudemson et Marie-Christine Hazaël-Massieux, mais aussi Daniel Baggioni, Didier de Robillard, etc) par tha question de l’éducation dans lees mondes créoles: travauz sure les Petites Antilles, L’Océan Indien. mais aussi Haïti.”

Netherlands

From:

Pieter Muysken
University of Amsterdam
ATW, Spuistraat 210
1012 VT Amsterdam
THE NETHERLANDS
Pieter.Muysken@let.uva.nl

“We have two graduate students working on creole first language acquisition with an educational perspecitive: Rocky Mease
(Jamaica, Jamaican Creole) and Cheraldine Osepa (Curaçao, Papiamentu). They can be contacted through me.”

Australia

From:

Prudy McLaughlin
KRALC
PO Box 89
Katherine, NT 0851 AUSTRALIA
prudy@compuserve.com

“We recently went to Canberra to the Speech Pathology Australia conference where the KRALC [the Katherine Regional Aboriginal Language Centre] was awarded the Commun-ity Contribution Award for services to Speech Pathology which was very exciting. We provided interpreters, worked on various assessment tools, plus gave cultural information about Aboriginal babies and toddlers…the entire exercise was done in Kriol.”

Here is part of a transcription of the award presentation, held in March 1977:

This year the award goes to the Katherine Regional Aboriginal Language Centre which has assisted the NT [Northern Territory] Speech Pathologist (Merryn Philpott) to achieve culturally appropriate service delivery for Aboriginal people.
This has been achieved through the provision of lectures and workshops specifically designed for speech pathologists, collaboration on the development of clinically useful tools such as the Kimberley Early Language Scales, the Kriol articulation word set and the Kriol adaptation of the Reynell.…
The achievements and learning from this alliance are being presented at state and national conferences including the conference here this week.
Over the last 4 years, the Centre, which includes linguists, language workers, Kriol/English interpreters and support staff, has provided support, guidance and expertise to assist the NT branch in achieving a major strategic goal of providing culturally appropriate service delivery.

From:

Joseph Blyth
Kimberley Language Resource Centre
PMB 11
Halls Creek, WA 6770 AUSTRALIA
klrchc@peg.pegasus.oz.au

“In February 1997 KLRC linguists Joyce Hudson and Joseph Blythe ran a series of Kriol workshops in Halls Creek. We had a one day introductory workshop that was open to Kriol speakers and non-speakers. We looked at how Creoles grow out of Pidgins. We then looked at some of the features of Kriol grammar and how it differs from Standard English. We also looked at how Kriol words can have different meanings from their Standard English equivalents. Then we had two days of workshops that were open to Kriol speakers only. At these workshops the orthography was introduced that has been used widely in the Northern Territory and transcription assignments were set. Everyone who successfully completed all their assignments was given a certificate to say they can read and write in Kriol. We had 5 graduates. The workshops were well received. In the past Kriol has not enjoyed the prestige of either traditional languages or Standard English. People became quite enthusiastic about reading and writing Kriol. Being able to read and write one’s first language is empowering. We wanted to find out if people were happy with the orthography used in the NT, which they were, and whether it was suitable for the variety of Kriol spoken in Halls Creek. The orthography was quite suitable but perhaps there are a few more symbols required for some of the long vowel sounds.”