In January 2012, "Kreol Morisien," the main "lingua franca" of the Republic of Mauritius, was officially introduced within the "National Curriculum Framework" as one of the country's ancestral languages. Since the colonial period, the teaching of ancestral languages has served to preserve the ancestral heritage,…

Teaching to students' local experiences is a tenet of good teaching in many contexts. This study explores the ways eight educators use local meanings in discourse. Through ethnographic work in an elementary school in the township of Roche-Bois, Mauritius, I examine teachers' words about students' localities. Articulating critical discourse…

This study investigated the changing patterns of language use and language attitudes of younger generations of Mauritians over the last two decades. This article discusses the shift in language attitudes of students in secondary education with special emphasis on Kreol, taught since 2012 in primary schools and from 2018 in secondary schools. A…

Beyond his contributions to the field of psychology, Vygotsky may be considered as 'one of the first thinkers in complexity' (Jörg, 2011 p. 14). Vygotsky challenged linear causality and defended the idea of the transcendence of individual learning to focus on the generative potential of learning and development through social interactions,…

Students in Mauritius experience difficulties in conceptualising Shakespearean texts, often remaining disarticulated between exclusively subjective or completely disengaged reflections. This contribution aims to explore the perspectives provided by using the Experiential Altero-Reflexive (EAR) model, complemented by the use of YouTube video clips…

This eleven-month ethnographic study puts critical discourse analysis in dialogue with postmodern conceptualizations of space and place to explore how eight educators talk about space and in the process, produce racialized spaces in Roche Bois, Mauritius. The macro-historical context of racialization of this urban marginalized community informs…

In Mauritius, Kreol is the home language of the majority of school children, while English is the main language of literacy and the main written medium of instruction as from the first year of primary schooling. This has had a backwash effect on the preschool sector, where English is introduced. A cross-sectional study of local preschools revealed…

This paper argues that Dev Virahsawmy, an author who manipulates literary translation for the purposes of linguistic prestige formation and re-negotiation, is a critical language-policy practitioner, as his work fills an important gap in language planning scholarship. A micro-analysis of the translation of a Shakespearean sonnet into Mauritian…

Negotiating their double identity as Mauritians and Muslims in multilingual and in multiethnic Mauritius, Mauritian Muslims have been socialised into reading and writing in Kreol in madrassahs, while they have never been exposed to Kreol literacy in mainstream education. At the point where Kreol is being introduced as an optional school subject,…

While the extant literature has highlighted the important contribution of home literacy experiences to early literacy development, limited research has been carried out among children living in postcolonial contexts, where there is a mismatch between the home and school language. Such is the case of Mauritius. The present exploratory case study…

The present study was carried out in the context of the recent (2012) introduction of Kreol in the primary school curriculum in Mauritius. The time-tabling of Kreol as an optional subject offered at the same time as the other existing ancestral languages, institutionalised Kreol as an ancestral language, despite its status as a national language.…

Mauritius is a multilingual island, where there is a linguistic and literacy paradox. While Mauritian Creole dominates as the spoken language of the population, English and French are the main print languages, as well as the main languages of literacy and education. In such a complex situation, preschool is an interesting terrain in which to…

This study analyzes the connections among multilingual language practices, multilingual literacy practices, and social identities in two Sunni madrassahs in Mauritius. The study is framed by sociolinguistic and poststructuralist perspectives on language and identity, and social practice views of literacy. Data collection and analysis involved…

Mauritius is a linguistically diverse island: most people on the island are native speakers of Mauritian Creole, a French-lexified Creole; English is the written medium of instruction in primary schools and French is taught as a compulsory subject. The discontinuity between the home language and the school languages is viewed as problematic by…

This study describes how in-service teachers in the pre-vocational sector in Mauritius adopted specific strategies to overcome the language barrier in the learning of science (Van Driel, Verloop & de Vos, 1998). Students of form III were taught few basic ideas related to "Earth & Space" through the use of role play and ICT. The…