Our teacher doesn't speak like theirs: Analysis of variations in the spoken English of teachers in Multilingual settings in Kenya

Abstract

English language is not only one of the official languages in Kenya but also a medium of instruction in Kenyan schools. The assumption is that at all school levels, the teachers, who are also the main linguistic models to the learners are excellent in their command of the language. There is need to investigate the reality of the English classroom in Kenya since this assumption may not necessarily be a representation of the actual reality. This chapter seeks to investigate the variations and reports its findings that indeed the spoken language used by these teachers varies significantly even from the norm of correctness as is based on the British Standard. This mainly is because of two aspects, one being that there are other international languages spoken in Kenya and secondly, the fact that the ethnicity variable impacts on the spoken English used by the teachers within their classrooms