COURSE OVERVIEW
This manual is designed to serve as the basis for an introductory training course in the Krio language. There are nine units of five lessons each. Every fifth lesson is a review and a test. A set of tapes for the nine units has been prepared.
The primary goal of the course at Indiana University was aural comprehension, however, oral production was not neglected. The ten week course consisted of 1 and a half hour per day, five days a week in the classroom with naive speakers of Krio and one and a half hours per day in the language laboratory per week. We found this schedule most satisfactory for achieving our primary goal, aural comprehension.
The material we have produced will serve most effectively as a first course in Krio if it is mastered by the student. mastery means memorization of the dialoges so that they may be recited and performed without flaws in pronunciation or grammar. It also means the ability to perform all drills correctly without hesitation. Maximum benefit from this material will be realized when it is mastered in this way.
Our procedure in developing materials has been cautious and we believe, sound. Beginning with only a brief sketch of some major grammatical points, we elicited dialogues containing these points and based the drills of each lesson on the dialogues, expanding the vocabulary as we built drills. It is obvious that these lessons are not exhaustive. it is also obvious that no such project could be exhaustive in the fifty days that we have had available.
This manual does not pretend to be definitive work in any of its lingustic or para - linguistic aspects. We are only too aware of the many important aspects of Krio which we have omitted due to the lack of time. We have purposely ignored the problems of stress and tone in the lesson material (except where noted as discussed on page 10). The daily lessons represent an evolving analysis which at the time of the close of the project was not yet in a form which should be included in a preliminary draft. The student should not be trubled by the lack of stress and tone markings if he will do his best to mimic his teacher with a high degree of accuracy.
PROGRAMS THAT USED THIS LANGUAGE
Sierra Leone: 1962-1994, 2010-present
PROGRAM SECTORS
Sierra Leone: Education
Sierra Leone Krio is the lingua franca and the de facto national language spoken throughout the West African nation of Sierra Leone. Krio is spoken by 97% of Sierra Leone's population and unites the different ethnic groups in the country, especially in their trade and social interaction with each other. Krio is the primary language of communication among Sierra Leoneans at home and abroad. The language is native to the Sierra Leone Creole people or Krios, (a community of about 300,000 descendants of freed slaves from the West Indies, United States and United Kingdom), and is spoken as a second language by millions of other Sierra Leoneans belonging to the country's indigenous tribes. English is Sierra Leone's official language, while Krio, despite its common use throughout the country, has no official status. The Krio language is an offshoot of the language brought by the Nova Scotian Settlers from North America, Maroons from Jamaica, and the numerous liberated African slaves who settled in Sierra Leone.
Krio is spoken in: Sierra Leone
Krio is also called: Patois
