Abstract The connection between multilingualism and the school curriculum continues to engender debates on language preferences because of the potential to influence the amount of learning among learners. To understand language preferences among multilingual learners and their implications for the selection of the medium of instruction (MoI) in a multilingual country, data were collected through questionnaires and interviews among learners, teachers and head teachers in deep, rural Kenyan primary schools. These schools are located away from urban centres, with little or no basic infrastructure, hence the concept of “deep ruralness”. The participants were purposively sampled from among learners, teachers and head teachers to examine how learners’ affiliations with multilingualism could explain the preferred MoI, and the ways through which schools implement the use of an MoI in the curriculum. The findings show that Kiswahili and English were used as the MoI, even when the curriculum recommended indigenous languages and English. Moreover, learners’ multilingual affiliations and their spontaneous languages were their indigenous languages and Kiswahili. Based on these findings, we claim that the indigenous language, Kiswahili and English should be used as the languages of instruction in Kenyan schools.

中文翻译：

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学校教学语言：土著语言，本国语言还是官方语言？肯尼亚多语种乡村深地的案例研究

摘要多种语言与学校课程之间的联系继续引起语言偏好方面的争论，因为它可能影响学习者的学习量。为了了解多语言学习者的语言偏爱及其对多语言国家选择教学语言的意义，通过对肯尼亚农村偏远小学的学习者，教师和班主任进行问卷调查和访谈，收集了数据。这些学校远离城市中心，几乎没有基础设施，因此没有“深农村”的概念。目的是从学习者，教师和班主任中抽取参与者，以研究学习者与多种语言的联系如何解释首选的MoI，以及学校在课程中实施MoI的方式。调查结果表明，即使课程推荐使用土著语言和英语，也可以使用斯瓦希里语和英语作为教学语言。此外，学习者的多语种隶属关系和自发语言是其土著语言和斯瓦希里语。基于这些发现，我们声称肯尼亚学校应使用土著语言，斯瓦希里语和英语作为教学语言。