Attitudes of the Tagart Community Towards the Teaching of Amazigh as an L 1 in Morocco
Submitted by:
Khadija Ouhmidi
Abstract:
Amazigh, one of the mother tongues in Morocco besides Dialectal Arabic (Darija), has been for long a stigmatized and marginalized minority language. Recently, however, under the pressure of the Amazigh Cultural Movement and Human Rights Organizations, the Moroccan authorities have changed their attitudes from total rejection to official recognition. The language is currently being taught at school to both native and non-native speakers of the language. The aim of the present paper is to explore the status of Amazigh language teaching (ALT) in the Tagart community, a High Atlas Mountain area, and to find out about the community’s attitudes towards the teaching of its mother tongue (MT). The main objective of the study is to determine the type of attitudes the members of the community hold towards the introduction of their MT at school and compare them to former studies on the issue, namely Boussagui (2019), Idhssaine (2020). The study also tries to determine whether the age and rural context influence the community’s perceptions of the teaching of Amazigh. Three main questions are addressed, namely (i) what is the status of Amazigh teaching in the Tagart area? (ii) what attitudes does the Tagart community hold towards Amazigh language teaching as an L1? (iii) to what extent do the participants’ age and the rural context influence these attitudes? To answer these questions, a qualitative approach was adopted. The data was gathered by means of participant observation and semi-structured interviews with 48 participants belonging to four different age groups. The thematic analysis of the data revealed that Amazigh is not being taught in Tagart schools. It also showed that Amazigh language teaching (ALT) is highly regarded by the community members. The study highlights the need for ALT in the Tagart area as a means to make the community aware and exposed to the standard variety of Amazigh that is being promoted through the teaching of the language.
Keywords: Amazigh teaching; attitudes; Tagart community; rural context; Morocco.
References
Boussagui, Y. (2019). Language Policy in Morocco: The Case of Amazigh Language-in-
Education Policy [Doctoral dissertation]. Mohamed V University, Faculty of Letters,
Rabat, Morocco.
Idhssaine, A. (2020). Moroccans’ Attitudes towards Amazigh Language Teaching: Patterns and Perspectives. Applied Linguistics Research Journal.
https://doi.org/10.14744/alrj.2020.62634