Residents in Greater Accra Region advised to learn the Ga Language

Daniel Kabu Narteh, a retired Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) examiner, has encouraged residents in the Greater Accra Region to learn the Ga Language as a way of embracing the culture of their host region.

He debunked the notion that teaching and learning the Ga language was difficult.

Narteh, who is a veteran teacher, said this in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) on the importance of learning local languages as part of promoting the traditions and culture of the Ghanaian people.

“It is not true that learning the Ga Language is difficult. Just like other local languages, it has the same basics and principles,” he said.

“Learning and speaking the language of a host community not only provides the resident with additional language to communicate with the people, but also gives a sense of belonging, a better understanding of the traditions and culture of the people, and promotes national coercion,” he stated.

Narteh encouraged parents to speak their local languages with their children at home and take advantage of where they stayed to learn the local Ghanaian languages prevalent.

“Speak your local language with the children. It is worrying to see a child called Adoley who does not understand even one Ga word. It is a big problem that if we don’t work on it now, it will lead to the extinction of the language in some years to come,” he said.

The veteran Ga and Dangme teacher said it had been proven that when children had a grip on their local languages, it made it easier for them to properly learn and understand the English Language and other subjects taught, as “teaching is done from the known to the unknown.”

He, however, bemoaned the inability of the Ghana Education Service and the Ministry of Education to retain teachers who had been trained to teach Ga and Dangme in the Greater Accra Region to facilitate the teaching and learning of the language in the schools.

Narteh said the trend was worrying as people who were sponsored by some traditional areas to get the training and return to teach the language ended up being posted outside the region to teach other subjects as the languages, they specialised in could not be taught in the regions they had been sent to.

He lamented that most schools were, therefore, left with no options than to either take the Ghanaian language out of their subjects or resort to teaching the Akan language, as teachers were abundantly available in Greater Accra to teach that at the disadvantage of the natives.