The textbook as a major source of difficulty in the teaching and learning of geography through the medium of English in Standard 3 in black primary schools
- Authors: Langhan, David Patrick
- Date: 1991
- Subjects: Children, Black -- Education -- South Africa , Geography -- Textbooks , Geography -- Study and teaching (Primary) -- South Africa , Language and education -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2335 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002017 , Children, Black -- Education -- South Africa , Geography -- Textbooks , Geography -- Study and teaching (Primary) -- South Africa , Language and education -- South Africa
- Description: This dissertation provides evidence to suggest that teaching/learning difficulties with geography in Std 3 are largely attributable to textbooks which fail as well constructed discourse and include uninterpretable illustrations. The discourse properties most likely to affect the readability of textbooks intended for ESL/EFL pupils are identified. Selected passages from two widely used Std 3 geography textbooks are analysed in terms of these properties, and are shown to fail extensively as well constructed discourse. Following classroom observation and informal interviews which confirmed the inappropriacy of the texts for Std 3 pupils, the passages were re-written, following the necessary properties of well constructed expository discourse. The readability of these two sets of texts was then tested on a group of nine Std 3 teachers in two structured interviews. The findings reveal that the re-written passages are significantly more readable than the textbook passages. Recommendations that affect education authorities, curriculum designers, syllabus makers, textbook authors, publishers and teacher training colleges are provided
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- Date Issued: 1991
Attitudes of isiXhosa-speaking students at the University of Fort Hare towards the use of isiXhosa as a language of learning and teaching (LOLT)
- Authors: Dalvit, Lorenzo
- Date: 2004
- Subjects: Native language and education -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Xhosa language -- Study and teaching (Higher) -- South Africa , English language -- Study and teaching (Higher) -- South Africa , Education, Bilingual , Language and education -- South Africa , Language policy -- South Africa , University of Fort Hare -- Students -- Attitudes
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2343 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002625 , Native language and education -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Xhosa language -- Study and teaching (Higher) -- South Africa , English language -- Study and teaching (Higher) -- South Africa , Education, Bilingual , Language and education -- South Africa , Language policy -- South Africa , University of Fort Hare -- Students -- Attitudes
- Description: The present work presents and discusses the results of a survey of a sample of isiXhosa-speaking students at the University of Fort Hare (Alice campus) and their attitudes towards the possible introduction of isiXhosa as a medium of instruction at this institution. More specifically, the research focuses on, among other things, the students’ attitudes towards English and isiXhosa and their opinions and beliefs about the introduction of dual-mediumship and its possible consequences. The survey methods used are a questionnaire survey as well as follow-up interviews, supplemented by on-campus observation. The results are first analysed as a whole, and then split into different categories according to a set of background variables (gender, year of study, subject studied etc). This analysis indicates that, while English is recognised as the dominant language in South Africa and, more specifically, in the domain of education, some categories of respondents acknowledge the usefulness of isiXhosa as an additional medium of instruction. This survey clearly shows that it makes little sense to present isiXhosa-speaking students with a rigid choice between the existing English-medium and a dual-medium (English and isiXhosa) policy. If dual-mediumship is ever to be implemented, respondents seem to consider the use of isiXhosa as a medium of instruction more appropriate in the first years of study, for selected subjects and in some domains within the academic context rather than others. This study is part of a growing set of surveys on the attitudes of university students towards the use of African languages in education, and can be fruitfully compared with similar research at other institutions. Moreover, the results of the present research can be used to inform future decisions regarding language policy at the University of Fort Hare.
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- Date Issued: 2004
The right to mother tongue education a multi-disciplinary, normative perspective
- Authors: Prinsloo, Dawn Lilian
- Date: 2005
- Subjects: Native language and education -- Government policy -- South Africa , Language and education -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:10999 , http://hdl.handle.net/10948/365 , Native language and education -- Government policy -- South Africa , Language and education -- South Africa
- Description: The post-apartheid South African Constitution guarantees the children of this country “the right to receive education in the official language or languages of their choice in public education institutions where that education is reasonably practicable” (The Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, Act 108 of 1996, Section 29 (2)) (Juta’s Statutes 2003). Yet ten years into the new dispensation nothing significant has been done to alter a situation in which the majority of children are obliged to access their basic education largely through the medium of a second or even a third language — English. In contravention of both the intentions and the specific provisions of numerous legislative measures and policy statements, Government has made no serious or effective attempt to promote the use of any language other than English in South African schools nor to encourage language practices most conducive to the cognitive development and academic success of millions of non-English speaking pupils. To make matters worse, most of the children who enter the school system with very little knowledge of English and are expected to make an abrupt transition to that language as a medium of instruction after a totally inadequate three years are from impoverished households and communities still suffering the gravest effects of the discrimination and oppression of apartheid. They are often underprepared and seriously disadvantaged by their background circumstances when they enter the culturally strange and intimidating western-style education system. To heap on top of these disadvantages the burden of language practices in the classroom that hinder rather than facilitate their access to education is indefensible. When Macdonald asks, “ Are our children still swimming up the waterfall?” (Macdonald 2002: 111) she is not exaggerating. In these circumstances and if ineffective language teaching and inadequate use of the mother tongue as a medium of instruction can be shown to bar effective access to basic education of an acceptable standard, there are far more serious and far-reaching implications in terms of human rights than just the right to choice of language medium. Linguistic research into medium of instruction has tended to be isolated from evaluative legal approaches to minority language rights, children’s rights, education rights or other fundamental human rights. Insufficient attention has been given to the interrelationship between the various rights and the importance of local conditions and circumstances in any assessment of their relative weight and enforceability. Human rights cannot be seen out of context, and theory from various disciplines, such as politics, economics and linguistics may be invaluable in forming a fresh perspective on the right to mother tongue education and, indeed, to basic education in general. The principle of non-discrimination in education is generally recognised, to be sure, as is the importance of ensuring access to and quality of education (Strydom 1992/93:139), but the dependence of these factors on the most appropriate medium of instruction within the education system does not merit much attention in the literature. The right to basic education tends to be seen as separate from any possible right to choice of medium of instruction and the latter often merely as a question of convenience or preference, at best a qualified right (Oosthuizen and Rossouw 2001: 666), dependent on feasibility, numbers and available finance (Motata and Lemmer 2002: 111). In fact, the case for regarding the right to mother tongue education as a strong positive right in many contexts and countries does not appear yet to have been made. This study is theoretical in nature and constitutes an attempt to fill this gap by examining the findings and views of experts from various disciplines within the framework of current thinking on human rights issues. The development of a coherent framework within which to view the right to mother tongue education and government obligations in connection therewith might be of some value to policy makers in their efforts to plan improvements within the education system. The synthesis and possibly, to a limited extent, the development of theory from the relevant disciplines will be undertaken by means of a survey of the relevant literature, an analysis of not only local but also international legislation and policy documents and the weighing and balancing of conflicting evidence and contrasting viewpoints. Sources and contributions in each area will be discussed under the headings outlined in Chapter 3. First, however, I should like to provide an overview of the educational, political and economic context in which mother tongue education must be considered.
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- Date Issued: 2005
A case study of two teachers' understanding of and attitudes towards bilingualism and multiculturalism in a South African primary school
- Authors: Sutton, Candace
- Date: 2006
- Subjects: Bilingualism in children , English language -- Study and teaching (Elementary) -- Foreign speakers , English language -- Study and teaching (Elementary) -- South Africa , Education, Bilingual -- South Africa , Language and languages -- Study and teaching , Language policy -- South Africa , Multicultural education -- South Africa , Language and education -- South Africa , Multiculturalism
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2363 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002646 , Bilingualism in children , English language -- Study and teaching (Elementary) -- Foreign speakers , English language -- Study and teaching (Elementary) -- South Africa , Education, Bilingual -- South Africa , Language and languages -- Study and teaching , Language policy -- South Africa , Multicultural education -- South Africa , Language and education -- South Africa , Multiculturalism
- Description: At present, there is an emphasis in South African education on promoting multicultural classrooms in schools. This thesis examines the classroom culture of a South African English-medium school, where the majority of the learners are Second Language English learners. It first describes, in the form of a case-study, how two teachers have constructed the culture of their foundation phase classrooms. It then considers why the two teachers have constructed their classrooms in such ways by exploring their knowledge and understanding of, and attitudes towards, multiculturalism, second language acquisition and multilingualism. The study also briefly considers whether teacher training has sufficiently prepared these teachers for the challenges of a multicultural classroom. The data is discussed in terms of education and second language acquisition theory and South African education and language policies. The results of this study indicate that for the most part the classroom culture is distinctly Western and that the teachers have two fundamental assumptions that underpin their action and classroom construction. The first is that a lack of exposure to English is the primary cause of language problems for L2 learners and the second is that the L1 does not need to be maintained or promoted in the school environment because learners are sufficiently exposed to their L1 in the home. The thesis concludes that shortcomings in training and information encourages these two assumptions to take root and that more in-service training that focuses specifically on the nature of second language acquisition and multiculturalism is necessary.
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- Date Issued: 2006
Bilingual teaching practices in South African higher education : making a case for terminology planning
- Authors: Mawonga, Sisonke
- Date: 2015
- Subjects: Language and education -- South Africa , Native language and education , Language policy -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:3653 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1017894
- Description: When the apartheid government was in power universities in South Africa were segregated according to a race and language. After apartheid, the democratic government came into power and its vision was abolition of segregation. There was also equal and equity of access to public institutions which were set aside for certain people to have access to. Access to universities was equalized and students with different racial, social, cultural and linguistic backgrounds were allowed access to universities which they used not to have access to before. The students‟ access to all universities led to diversity within these institutions. Even though this was the case, there were no changes in the system prevalent during apartheid. English, for example, continued to be the language of learning and teaching (LoLT) while the numbers of students who speak languages other than English (LOTE) as home languages was also increasing. The Constitution of South Africa (Section 6, Act 108 of 1996) acknowledges the previous marginalization of indigenous languages in the country and encourages the development and use of these languages as official languages. The right of access to educational institutions, and accessing education in one‟s language, if that language is one of the official languages, is also encouraged by the Constitution. There are other supporting legislative documents such as the Languages Bill (2011), the Higher Education Act (1997) and the national Language Policy for Higher Education (LPHE) (2002) that support multilingualism, the equal promotion of the official languages as well as use of multiple languages in higher education institutions (HEIs) to support learning. The above mentioned policies and legislations may exist to ensure equality and equity, and even though HEIs have become heterogonous, that does not guarantee that the students enrolled in these institutions have equal access to knowledge offered by the HEIs in SA. This research uses the theories of languages and conceptualization; language and learning as well as language planning to show that the students‟ first languages in learning can assist to facilitate cognition. Terminology development, as part of corpus planning which is the body of language planning is introduced in this study in the form of bilingual glossaries as an intervention especially for students‟ whose mother tongue is not English as language used for learning at university for different disciplines tend to be abstract. The data for this research was collected from the 2014 first year students registered in the Extended Studies Unit (ESU) in the Humanities Faculty at Rhodes University. Research methods such as questionnaires, participant observations, interviews as well as content analysis were used to collect the data. These methods were used to look at the students‟ use and perceptions of bilingual glossaries as additional resource materials which can assist them in learning. A Political Philosophy I module offered by the Political Science department was used for this research. This thesis presents a model which can be used for the development of bilingual glossaries in order to facilitate learning. The thesis recommends the use of corpus extraction tools such as WordSmith Tools (WST) that can be used to generate and extract terms and illustrates the use of this tool by extracting terms from an English Political Philosophy textbook. These terms are defined and these are then translated into isiXhosa to provide a sample of the bilingual glossary. This glossary has been designed to illustrate how the bi/multilingual glossaries with terms and definitions can be developed in order for use by students to facilitate learning them. The study also presents a terminology list which consists of Political Philosophy terms that have been generated during the corpus extraction process. It is recommended that further research looks into the development of bi/multilingual glossaries using the suggested model so that the students who are speakers of LOTE can also be able to understand abstract terms which are used at university
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- Date Issued: 2015
Implementation of multilingualism in South African higher education : exploring the use of isiXhosa in teaching and learning at Rhodes University
- Authors: Gambushe, Wanga
- Date: 2015
- Subjects: Language and education -- South Africa , Multilingual education -- South Africa , Native language and education -- South Africa , Education, Higher -- South Africa , Language policy -- South Africa , Cytology -- Study and teaching (Higher) -- South Africa , Xhosa (African people) -- Education (Higher)
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:3649 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1017890
- Description: This study explores the implementation of multilingualism at Rhodes University (RU), by examining the teaching and learning practices of lecturers, demonstrators and students within the Cell Biology module, offered by the Biological Sciences and Botany departments at RU. This examination is in line with RU’s Language Policy (2005/2014), which recognises multilingualism and the development of isiXhosa as an academic/scientific language. The study and the choice for the location of the study within RU was motivated by what seemed to be a pattern of under achievement of LOTE speaking students studying Cell Biology. This pattern necessitated a further inquiry into the language aspect of the teaching and learning of Cell Biology. The goals of this research were to investigate spaces where LOTE students use their home languages and the motivations behind their usage of those languages. Due to the varying proficiencies of LOTE students in their mother tongue, this study sought to investigate the language capabilities of LOTE students in their home languages. The perceptions of the main role players in the Cell Biology module were sought, in order to get an idea of what students, lecturers and demonstrators thought about multilingualism in teaching and learning practices in the Cell Biology module. This study has discovered that there is a disparity in achievement between LOTE and English speaking students, with English students outperforming LOTE students consistently in the period investigated. On the language capabilities of LOTE students in their mother tongue, it was discovered that they have enough linguistic capital for a mother tongue intervention to succeed. There were mixed views about the use of LOTE in HE, but students were mostly in favour of the use of LOTE. A number of recommendations are made as to how multilingualism can be implemented in Cell Biology. In this study I argue that there is a need to use the mother tongue of LOTE students in order to support learning, the mother tongue intervention is supported by scholars such as Paxton (2007, 2009; Madiba 2011, 2012, 2014). The use of the mother tongue to support learning should be a short-term measure while the process of the development of African languages is underway, because languages develop as they are used, and form follows function (Madiba 2008). Ultimately, African languages should be developed and use as academic languages in HE not only in order to fulfil the legislative imperatives such as the Constitution and the Language Policy Higher Education but also to increase access and success among LOTE students.
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- Date Issued: 2015
Monolingualism and its meaning in two KwaZulu-Natal high schools
- Authors: Carlyle, Jacqui
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: Monolingualism -- South Africa , Monolingualism -- South Africa -- Case studies , Language awareness -- South Africa , Language and education -- South Africa , School children -- South Africa -- Attitudes , School children -- South Africa -- Attitudes -- Case studies , African languages -- Study and teaching -- South Africa -- Attitudes
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/6543 , vital:21135
- Description: This study reports on the identity and attitudes of monolingual English speakers (MES) at two high schools in Durban, South Africa, in relation particularly to the role and meaning of monolingualism. Two bodies of data are used to investigate the attitudes of MES and are oriented towards four variables: English, African languages (particularly Zulu), monolingualism and plurilingualism. The attitudes to these variables reveal the impact on identity of language usage in Durban, and negotiations of the participants in trying to mitigate or justify attitudes that are counter to the embracing of diversity encouraged in modern South Africa. First, an attitude questionnaire provides quantitative data that is subjected to analysis, including a chi-squared test. Second, a narrative elicitation interview provides qualitative narrative data that is analysed in relation to APPRAISAL theory. Both analysis types are used to ascertain the presence of a monolingual mindset in the scholars’ responses, as well as to capture the ideological forces to which they are subjected as monolingual English speakers in the unique multilingual setting of Durban. In essence, the data points to a discourse of compromise and unease on the part of the participants - as they juggle with the effects of an English-centric monolingual mindset, and a more pervasive pluralism that embraces the Rainbowism of ‘the new South Africa’. This discourse of compromise is characterized on one side by insecurity and dissatisfaction with the language in education policy, and well as the monolingual upbringing of MES in Durban, and a lack of Language other than English (LOTE), in particular, Zulu. This side of the compromise also portrays a pro- plurilingual orientation, a positive valuation of knowing a LOTE and of plurilingual people. Here, however, the manifestation of the ‘other side’ of the compromise appears as the MES characterize plurilingualism as exceptional and too difficult, and language learning at school as having a negative impact on academic success. Alongside this is a normalization of English and othering of African languages in practical situation. English is also promoted as the language of unity and economic and academic progress or success, while the material value of African languages is questioned.
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- Date Issued: 2017
Learning about volunteering: an exploration of literacy volunteers' experiences
- Authors: Yendall, Kaitlin Amy
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: Literacy -- Study and teaching -- South Africa , Literacy programs -- South Africa , Voluntarism -- South Africa , Volunteer workers in community development -- Training of , Service learning , Language and education -- South Africa , Language arts (Primary) , English language -- Study and teaching (Elementary) , Volunteer workers in Education -- Training of
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/138336 , vital:37623
- Description: After almost 25 years of democracy in South Africa, not everyone has access to the same quality education. The responsibility of creating a literate society however cannot rely on the national government and schools alone, but instead needs to fall on the shoulders of various stakeholders. Volunteers in particular have an important role to play in remedying the current literacy crisis experienced in South Africa. This study takes the form of a case study approach and examines the experiences of Project Read literacy volunteers. A telephonic survey and two focus group discussions were conducted in order to determine who it is that volunteers for the programme; what prompts these particular individuals to volunteer; the perceived benefits of volunteering; and how volunteers report on their volunteering experiences. Although the Project Read programme is focused on the early literacy development of learners, volunteers seemed to undergo a developmental process themselves – something they had not anticipated at the start of their volunteering journey. This study illustrates the power of meaningful relationships in breaking down artificial categories and in bringing about important change with regards to the perceptions and attitudes of individuals towards community engagement. It is hoped that the data generated through this study will assist in recruiting and retaining more literacy volunteers through feedback to the NGO. In this way more children will be assisted to enhance their literacy competencies, from which they can build and achieve.
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- Date Issued: 2020