Michel_DeGraff
Michel DeGraff
Haitian creolist
Michel Frederic DeGraff[2] is a Haitian creolist who has served on the board of the Journal of Haitian Studies.[3] He is a tenured professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology[3] and a founding member of the Haitian Creole Academy.[4] His field of scholarship is Creole language, also known as Lang Kreyòl Linguistics.[3] He is known for his advocacy towards the recognition of Haitian Creole as a full-fledged language.[3] In the fall of 2012, he received a $1 million grant from the National Science Foundation to introduce online Creole language materials in the teaching of STEM in Haiti.[3] He believes that Haitian children should be taught in their native language at all levels of instruction, contrary to the tradition of teaching them in French.[5] Degraff believes that instruction in French, a foreign language for most Haitian children, hinders their creativity and their ability to excel.[5]