LEADER 00000nam  2200373   4500 
001    AAI3185727 
005    20080806081542.5 
008    080806s2005    ||||||||||||||||| ||eng d 
020    9780542275623 
035    (UMI)AAI3185727 
040    UMI|cUMI 
100 1  Balma, Anatole 
245 10 Benchmarking language policies in West Africa through 
       reassessment, networked technologies and continuing 
       involvement with other learning communities 
300    112 p 
500    Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 66-
       08, Section: A, page: 2816 
500    Major Professor: Alan Garfinkel 
502    Thesis (Ph.D.)--Purdue University, 2005 
520    Whether our concerns are about the everyday lives of 
       people and their social interaction, or about social 
       change and education, the issue of language is as vital as
       it is complex. Language performs different functions 
       including a means of communication, expression and 
       conceptualization. Therefore, language should be seen as a
       resource rather than a problem. In a multilingual society,
       knowledge of more than one language is an asset both in an
       immediate economic sense, at the workplace, for instance, 
       and in the larger social sense of opening many worlds or 
       cultures and as a nation-building and pro-democracy 
       practice. In the 21st century, multilingualism is the norm,
       not the exception, and Africa is well endowed in this 
       respect. We work with, not against, the grain of our 
       societal multilingualism. The purpose of this study is to 
       attempt to articulate language policies in West Africa 
       from the field of benchmarking with the goal of improving 
       educational outcomes. In so doing, this study has elected 
       to describe, compare and contrast existing language 
       policies in Burkina Faso and Ghana, it will also explore 
       whether benchmarking offers genuine promise for 
       improvement in teaching and learning and ask what 
       approaches to policy and benchmarking hold the most 
       promise 
590    School code: 0183 
590    DDC 
650  4 Education, Language and Literature 
650  4 Education, Bilingual and Multicultural 
650  4 Education, Technology 
650  4 Education, Curriculum and Instruction 
690    0279 
690    0282 
690    0710 
690    0727 
710 2  Purdue University 
773 0  |tDissertation Abstracts International|g66-08A 
856 40 |uhttp://pqdd.sinica.edu.tw/twdaoapp/servlet/
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