Paper short abstract:

How do teachers in training absorb and promote beliefs that local languages (like Lam Nso, in Cameroon) “interfere” with the development of children’s capacity to use English as individuals and as citizens? The conclusion offers ideas to link mother tongue teaching to positive development outcomes.

Paper long abstract:

This paper presents data about ideologies of language interference and their effects on indigenous language development. Based on nine months of fieldwork in Cameroon in 2010-11, the paper focuses especially on Lam Nso, a very covertly valued language that is widely understood to "interfere" with numerous concepts of development, including the development of Cameroonian English and in the process, interfere with both regional economic development and aspects of human development. Drawing on data from the national teacher training program, I discuss how academic teaching about the psychology of mother tongue interference is popularized through teacher training programs and textbooks; popular attitudes include "blaming" languages like Lam Nso for poor children's lack of educational success, where the problems of poor educational achievement are more likely based elsewhere, i.e. overcrowded schools, costs of schooling that exclude the poor who are more likely to use only pidgin and mother tongue languages, lack of English literacy embedded in daily life and work, and the concomitant instability of Cameroonian Englishes. I close by discussing how to reverse the trend in denigrating local languages towards two aims: broadening the discussion of pedagogies of literacy around both English use and local language use, and how to inspire mother tongue valuation by connecting it more explicitly to both local human development and economic development.