Strategies that can be used to promote the use of indigenous African languages for teaching and learning in schools: an exploratory case study of isiZulu
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Date
2015
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University of Zululand
Abstract
The study explored strategies that can be used to promote the use of indigenous African languages for teaching and learning in the General Education and Training (GET) and (Further Education and Training (FET) phases of schooling in South Africa. The motivation for the study came from the constitutional recognition given to indigenous African languages as official languages in South Africa with the advent of democracy in 1994 as well as subsequent education related legislation that was passed to enact this constitutional milestone; namely the South African Schools Act of 1996 and the Language-in-Education Policy of 1997. In spite of the constitutional recognition and the accompanying legislation, the researcher observed that the provisions made in the Language-in-Education Policy were not interpreted and implemented in a uniform way in all South African schools. An exploration of existing research indicated that the issue of language in teaching and learning is not a new problem nor is it unique to South Africa. It is a problem that permeates almost the whole of the African continent. A large body of research has highlighted the value of a learner’s home language for teaching and learning, but, despite this evidence very little has been achieved in terms of promoting African languages in education across the continent. The study followed a qualitative case study approach in which isiZulu, one of the indigenous African languages was used as an example. Data for the study was collected in the province of KwaZulu-Natal which is one of the nine provinces that constitute South Africa where isiZulu is the predominant language. Schools which were used as data collection sites were purposively sampled from rural, peri-urban and urban based schools. Respondents were sampled from educators and learners in primary and secondary schools. For triangulation purposes data was also collected from specialists in institutions of higher learning within the KwaZulu-Natal province. Questionnaires, interviews and observations were used to collect data.
The major findings of the study indicated that schools in all geographic dispensations do experience language related problems. In different ways responses indicated that the major cause of the language problem centered on the fact that the language of learning and teaching, namely English is not a home language for the majority of the learners. The language problem similarly affects teaching and learning in institutions of higher learning as well. In terms
of strategies that can be used to promote the indigenous African languages for teaching and learning purposes, the study found that the four key areas which need to be the focus of any plan of promoting indigenous African languages are policy revision, language development, materials development and teacher training and development.
Description
A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Arts in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of General Linguistics and Modern Languages at the University Of Zululand, South Africa, 2015
Keywords
indigenous languages --teaching --learning