IT COULD BE A WIN FOR THE CHILDREN OF BELIZE

My wife sponsors a child in Belize to go to school. That is usual; many “gringos do that kind of thing. This young man is in his seventh year of school. He is multilingual  Spanish, English, and Creole. The unique thing is that he is a very talented writer, poetry and the like, but has trouble in English class; he is handy capped by the system. Here is why. Although English is the official language, hence the common language, it is not the language spoken in their homes. The teachers speak some combination of Creole, Spanish, Mayan, and English. Of the four languages, English is the least common form of communication in families. Consequently, the English used in the class room, official language or not, was very often but not invariably bad. Teachers are working hard to make progress. The same is true of Spanish. People often mentioned how poor Belizean Spanish was.  Since 1980 and 1990, TV has invaded the small towns and rural areas, and most of Belize is rural, the use of language is getting remarkably better. In other words, TV originating from the United States, Guatemala, and Mexico is changing this. Now something else is there to help. It is called word processing.

Parents and teachers sometimes refuse to allow students to use word processors to write story etc for school. I think that is wrong. A student like the young man in question lacks high quality education in his most formative years. Now, he has to play catch up. A word processor such as MicroSoft Word^® with the spelling and grammar check can serve as a valuable teaching aid as long as it is for that and as a crutch. If a word is misspelled, the program will detect it and underline the word in red. The student should try at least three times to spell it correctly. If he or she is successful, the line will disappear, if not, with a click of the mouse a suggested spelling will appear. Grammar is even better. Errors in grammar are marked with an underline. By clicking on the word or phrase, the program makes suggestions but more important for the student explains what is wrong and how to correct it. This is equivalent to having a high quality teacher when ever and where ever you are.

Some teachers do not realize the value of this so do not allow students to do English homework on computers. I think this is wrong when it comes to written language skills. The obvious problem is that many students do not have computers in their homes, which is why it is so important to have them in schools and in libraries. You want to do something for the children of Belize, arrange for schools to have computer and libraries with word processing capabilities—a winning combination.