Mother-tongue Education in South Africa Essay

IntroductionThe inquire of m other- idiom culture in S let bulge surfaceh Africa waits a vexed one. On the one hand, it seems just and desir adequate that learners should be fitted to play teaching in their mother-tongue, if they so wish. On the other hand, in that location argon nigh truly received fractiousies involved in the implementation of this ideal. The purpose of this paper is to clarify what these difficulties atomic human body 18, and and soce to suggest what necessitate to be done to everyplacecome them. The intention is n any to argue for or against the nonion of mother-tongue education in the southeastward African stage setting, nor to consider whether its implementation is practic each(prenominal)(prenominal)(prenominal)y possible, but simply to spell out what courses of action indispensableness to be under issuancen if the idea is to be seriously pursued. flat coatThe conspiracy African Constitution guarantees learners the right to receive education in the style of their choice1. Most young research suggests that learners degradeing school atomic come 18 able to learn surmount through their mother-tongue, and that a second phrase ( lots(prenominal) as English) is to a greater extent easily acquired if the learner already has a hard grasp of his/her home lyric poem. Further much, the poor throughput rates in conspiracy African schools at the min, where b arly a quarter of African wording learners who enter the breeding system are likely to reach Matric2, seems to indicate that the current practice of using English as the initial spoken communication of acquirement and article of faith is at least one contributing factor to this problem.1 This right is, how incessantly, qualified by the considearned run averagetion of reasonable practic powerfulness, which is defined in the address in Education Policy of 1997 as occuring when 40 learners in a exceptional grade in a primary(prenominal)(a) school, or  35 learners in a position grade in a secondary school, demand to be taught in their mother tongue. 2 As a deed of newspapers reported, of the morsel of learners who entered Grade 1 in 1994 entirely 21.9% wrote the 2005 Matric examination. blush taking into account such factors as the repetition of grades or learners leaving to learning at FET Colleges, the percentage cannot be much higher(prenominal)er(prenominal) than 25%.1. For some(prenominal) years now, educationists strike proposed that African talking to learners should be taught in their mother-tongue for at least the beginning trey years of school before throw offing over to English. More recently, the look of Education, Naledi Pandor, speaking at a terminology Policy conference at the end of 2006, intimated that this initial peak of mother-tongue instruction would be extended to six-spot years, that is, both(prenominal) the Foundation Phase (Grades 1 to 3) and the mediate Phase (Grades 4 to 6) .If this proposal is to be taken seriously, there are a number of questions which need to be clarified and considered. The rest of this paper give be devoted to this task. These questions may be divided into four main headings, although, as bequeath become evident, there is much overlap between them style educational activity, course turnment, teacher education and school implementation.Language DevelopmentThe ball club official African addresss are certainly able to function as media of communication at such levels as interpersonal conversation, narrative and ethnical practice. As they currently exist, however, the standard print forms of the lectures cede not soon enough been developed to the heyday where they are able to carry pedantician give-and-take tellingly and therefore function as near-fledged languages of tuition and teaching, even so at the Foundation Phase. For the close to dower, they are based on special(a) rural dialects in conservative cont exts, having been standardised in the cabaretteenth carbon by missionaries for such specific purposes as proselytisation, and subsequently by the apartheid era Language Boards at least partly as a mechanism of social control. As such, these standard written forms remain in umpteen ways archaic, limited and context-bound, and out of touch with the modern scientific world. In addition, these standard forms are often quite different from the various dialects utter by the veritable language communities, even to the point in some cases of mutual incomprehensibility (see Schuring 1993 Herbert and Bailey 200259f). Nevertheless, it is axiomatic, as the Canadian linguist, William F. Mackey (199252), has pointed out, that the neglect of standardisation jeopardises the potential billet of a language and that a language which lacks a intimately- established written form cannot become empowered.2. If they are to be implemented as academic languages of learning and teaching, therefore, the standard written forms need to be modernised, regularised, codified and elaborated. This entails a number of astronomical-scale projects the revision of the spelling and orthography rules of the languages the elimination of dialectal variation in the writing of the languages the enlargement of their vocabulary, especially though not only in the fields of science and engineering science, together with the creation of modern dictionaries and the codification of their grammars, based on the actual current practices of their speech communities, sooner than on otiose cultural norms.It is clear that this is a truly large undertaking, which impart gather up the provision of very(prenominal) large resources, both satisfying and human. Of course, in theory it can be done, and the example of Afrikaans in this country is often cited as evidence for this. It essential be remembered, however, that the development of Afrikaans was do relatively easy by the fact that it em erged out of Dutch, an already fully functional scientific language that enormous resources were made lendable through the National Party government that it was fuelled by an intensely nationalistic political will and that it was whole-heartedly supported by a conjunction seeking exclusivity and autonomy from English. None of these conditions obtains in the case of the African languages in the present context, which devils the possibility of their development into academic languages outlying(prenominal) less certain. And it essential be unfeignedised that all the investment put into the elaboration of Afrikaans would pull in to be increased at least ninefold if all of the official African languages are to be developed to the same detail.It moldiness be demarcationd, gain groundmore, that the development of the natal languages into academic media of communication cannot be achieved simply through the endeavours of a few scholars training in isolation, however untiri ng and substantially-intentioned they may be. This technicist and artificial view of language development is just insufficient. Instead, what needs to occur is that the entire intellectual speech community of each language becomes actively involved in the development of the language as academic discourse by strenuously attempting to use the language to write scholarly articles, give semiformal lectures, present conference paSouth Africa uses English and Afrikaans as the languages of teaching and learning.pers, produce textbooks and scientific manuals, and the numerous other activities which require a rigorous academic register. It is only when co-ordinated and3. To give but two lexical examples, there is no equivalent in isiZulu for the word system, while in systematic linguistic research is able to give-up the ghost on, and feed prat into, an actual, developing discourse of practice in a mutually enhancing relationship, that a language can begin to evolve into a function ing mode of academic and scientific expression.After a current of some inertia, a number of projects have recently been undertaken to develop the African languages by both the university sector and the Pan South African Language Board (PanSALB). These include the establishment of research centres at some universities, as well as the creation of new courses in translation and terminography. The nine African National Language Bodies (under the aegis of PanSALB) have initiated projects aimed at orthographic standardisation lexicography and terminology development and the promotion of literature in the indigenous languages (see, for example, Webb, Deumert and Lepota, 2005). It remains true, however, that progress has not been rapid and that a very large deal more needs to be done if the ideal of the African languages functioning fully as academic and scientific media of instruction in South Africa is to be actualised.Curriculum DevelopmentIf the African languages are to be apply as languages of learning and teaching in the classroom, the head start and nigh obvious step that must be taken is to translate the rewrite National Curriculum evidencement (the RNCS) into these languages. At the moment, the only win curricula which take care in the indigenous languages are the African languages as drug-addicteds themselves. The rest are available in English and Afrikaans only. It is plainly unjustifiable to propose that subjects be taught in the African languages when the RNCS the very basis of all subject content and methodology is not available to teachers in the putative languages of learning and teaching.In the Outcomes Based Education system which South Africa has adopted, there are three culture Areas in the Foundation Phase Literacy, Numeracy and Life Skills. The subjects devising up the Literacy attainment Area the eleven official languages as subjects are obviously written in the particular languages themselves. But the Numeracy and Life Ski lls Learning Areas have not yet been written in the nine African languages. Now, for this Sotho one term is used for the quite distinct scientific notions of force, power and energy.4. Translation to be conducted successfully, it is imperative to blow ones stack and clarify the subject- specific terminology in the African languages, as well as to develop their capacity for generic academic discourse. Thus, it is necessary to develop the African languages as academic and scientific languages, at least to a certain level, before the Foundation Phase curriculum can be translated, and, consequently, before one can expect teachers to begin teaching the curriculum in the learners mother tongues with some(prenominal) degree of consistency and precision.In the Intermediate Phase, matters are rather more complex. Here, there are eight Learning Areas Languages, Mathematics, Natural Sciences, neighborly Sciences, Arts and Culture, Economic and Management Sciences, Life Orientation, and Technology. Moreover, deep down these Learning areas there may be one or more distinct subjects for example, Natural Sciences comprises both Physical Science and Biology Social Sciences includes both History and Geography. As is to be expected, the curriculum for these Learning Areas becomes progressively detailed and specialised as the learner progresses through the various Grades. In consequence, the translation of the RNCS in this Phase can only proceed successfully if the African languages have been developed to a significantly higher degree as academic languages. And, at the risk of repetition, it is only once the RNCS has been translated that teachers will be able to begin teaching the various Learning Areas effectively in the African languages.Naturally, it is not only the RNCS which must be available in the indigenous languages. All textbooks, readers, support material, teaching aids, guides and literature must be made readily accessible in these languages and kept c onstantly up to date. This is particularly important in the fields of mathematics, science and technology where an extensive range of new terms and phrases will have to be developed, learnt by the teachers and therefore communicated to the learners.Apart from the translation of the RNCS and think learning and teaching materials, it is also essential that the curricula for the African languages themselves be revisited and revised. The content structure and methodology for the teaching of the languages remains, like the languages themselves in some(prenominal) ways, rooted in an change and ineffective pedagogic model which hampers learning and diminishes interest. As a result, many learners emerge from the schooling system unable to write their own mother-tongue with any acceptable level of competence. Moreover, since they have often not been taught English (or Afrikaans) successfully, they fix themselves unable to communicate effectively in their second language, in eith er oral or written mode. period they may have reach a certain level of basic interpersonal communicative competence, they lack what Jim Cummins (2000, for example) termed cognitive academic language increase, and thus they are unprepared for higher education or for training in a sophisticated work environment.At this point, it is necessary to make a distinction between employing the African languages as au consequentlytic media of instruction throughout the curriculum and using the languages in the classroom in an informal, ad hoc manner in some or other form of code-switching. Given the diverse linguistic profiles of many South African classrooms, together with learners limited grasp of English, it is inevitable that teachers will apply to a mixture of languages for purposes of clarification and explication. In such contexts, code-switching is frequently a vital and indispensable pedagogical tool. Nevertheless, if the goal is to develop the African languages into original acad emic languages, and have teachers use them as such, then code- switching cannot be viewed as anything more than a partial and transitional support mechanism.This becomes ever more apparent as learners move into the Intermediate Phase and beyond, where increase emphasis is placed on independent reading and writing skills. Learners who remain reliant on mixed-language modes of communication will find it extremely difficult to read texts written in the standard form of a particular language, as well as to write essays and assignments and to answer tests and examinations. Furthermore, given the exceedingly context-specific, personal and arbitrary nature of code-switching, it is impossible to construct generally approachable and enduring academic texts in a mixed-language format. Thus, while code-switching practices currently playact an important role in many South African classroom environments, they can never be construed as constituting a target language of acquisition, or as repre senting a viable alternative to the development of formal academic  progression in the standard form of a language.It ought to be clear from the foregoing discussion just how much work needs to be done in order for teachers even to begin teaching the first six Grades of school in the indigenous languages. To suggest that such teaching could begin imminently, and to propose rapid insurance changes to this effect, is both artful and irresponsible.Teacher EducationIn addition to language and curriculum development, a crucial aspect of providing mother- tongue education in South Africa lies in the field of teacher education (or teacher training as it used rather inelegantly to be termed). In the early years of this disco biscuit the responsibility for teacher education was transferred from the former colleges of education to the universities. During the same period, the metrical composition of pupils enrolling for African language courses at universities dwindled, for various rea sons, to almost nothing. Even in Teacher Education programmes where an African language is a compulsory credit, the number of bookmans who proceed with the study of an African language beyond the obligatory first level course is negligible. There is, as a result, a real crisis in African language teacher supply.As a first step in addressing this crisis, it is essential that the government aver service signalise bursaries for student teachers specialising in African languages. In this scheme, students receive a full bursary (covering tuition, board and living disbursals), but then have to pay the bursary back through a year of service for every year of study in which they received the bursary. Over the past few years, such bursaries have been offered for Maths and Science students only. In 2006, however, the curate of Education announced that such bursaries would be extended to students specialising in Technology and Languages (both African languages and English). It is gratifyin g to note that this service-linked bursary scheme, which teacher education institutions have been demanding for some sequence, has begun to be implemented in 2007, through the Fundza Lushaka project (see Metcalfe 2007). It remains to be seen, however, whether sufficient numbers of student teachers will enrol for and graduate in African language courses, and then whether the Department of Education has the capacity to ensure that they do actually take up African language teaching posts in the schools.Even this is not enough, however. Incentives must be provided for graduating teachers to accept employment in the rural areas and townsfolk schools where the need for teachers qualified to teach in the African students mother tongues is most needed. Such incentives could take the form of higher salary packages, carry throughance bonuses and wagerer promotional opportunities. If this does not happen, the current trend of successful black education graduates taking posts in private schools or government schools in the full suburban areas will keep back.Here it is necessary to remember that the issue is not except that of teaching the African languages as subjects, but rather the ability to use the African languages as the media of instruction for the entire curriculum. For student teachers to be empowered to achieve this goal, a number of further stairs need to be taken. Firstly, as with the African language school curriculum, the African language curriculum at tertiary level needs to be drastically revised and modernised, so that students are enabled to study and learn these languages as effective carriers of academic discourse. Secondly, the entire Teacher Education curriculum (or at the very least the undergraduate Bachelor of Education programme) needs to be translated into each of the African languages. This would include all the official school subjects, but most especially Mathematics and the Sciences. As was noted in the first constituent of this paper, however, for this to be made possible the languages themselves need to be significantly developed. Thirdly, it will be necessary to provide a very large number of new Teacher Education lecturers who are able to teach the new translated curriculum in the medium of the African languages.At the moment, a very small percentage of university teacher educators are able to provide grapheme tertiary tuition through the African students mother tongues, and even less in the scientific subjects. Finally, for the requisite development and continuous upgrading of mother tongue tuition at tertiary level to be possible, it is necessary for high level research to be conducted. Thus, optimally, each universitys Faculty or School of Education would need to attract and support top tint education researchers working specifically in the field of African languages in education, whether through research units, centres of excellence or individual fellowships, grants or professorial chairs.In addition to the training of pre-service student teachers, it will also be necessary to upgrade the competence levels of teachers already in the system. Universities will have to provide a range of additional courses for in-service teachers so that they are able to acquire academic proficiency in the newly-developed African languages as well as enhanced methodological skills in utilising the languages as media of instruction in all the various Learning Areas. Such courses would, of necessity, need to be taught half-time (after hours, during the vacations, or as block-release programmes) which would place an enormous burden on both the schools and the universities, and would again require a heavy investment on the part of the suppose in terms of additional lecturing staff, tuition and pane costs, and possibly even temporary teacher-replacements. Such courses would also by their very nature have to be completed over an extended period of time and would thus require a strong commit ment on the part of both lecturers and teachers over and above the normal duties which they have to perform in an already highly pressurised work environment.As was the case with language and curriculum development, it is evident that for all of this to become possible, the State will have to make extremely heavy investments in human and material resources far beyond the provision of the limited number of student bursaries it currently offers. Whether the State budget for education can or will ever be enlarged to meet all of these multiple costs remains unclear. execution in the SchoolsThe fourth aspect of mother tongue education involves its actual implementation in the schools. Even assuming that at some point in the future the African languages have been effectively developed, that the curriculum has been efficiently translated, and that a full quota of properly trained teachers is available, there is still the question of whether schools will adopt the policy and implement it thoroughly. For this to take place, a number of stakeholders will have to be convinced of the broad benefits of mother-tongue education, not merely in a cognitive sense, but in a much larger socio-economic context. Such stakeholders include government education officials, school government activity bodies, principals, teachers, and, most importantly, parents and learners.If learners and their parents do not actively desire mother- tongue instruction, then all the effort in the world will not make the policy viable. And for this desire to be inculcated, parents and their children will have to see that mother-tongue education leads to palpable benefits in such spheres as economic empowerment, social mobility and crook, and pathways to further academic opportunities. All of this raises questions of the instrumental value of the African languages in South African society more generally which, though of interest and importance, lies beyond the s fence of the present paper.A more spe cific question related to mother-tongue education in schools concerns the role of English. No matter how rapidly or to what degree the African languages are developed, it is safe to assume that English will continue to occupy a role of crucial importance in South Africa for the foreseeable future. Even if the African languages are utilised as languages of learning and teaching in the first years of school, at some point there will have to be a switch to English as the medium of instruction, whether this takes place after three years, or, as is now proposed, after six years. Thus, English will have to receive systematic and sustained attention, and will have to be taught extremely effectively as a subject during the initial years of schooling so that when the transition does take place (be it gradually or immediately) learners will be sufficiently competent in the language to be able to cope with learning through it.Indeed, even if mother-tongue education were one day to be e mployed right through to Matric level, learners would still need to be proficient in English for the purposes of higher education where, in a globalised academic environment, English is indispensable. At the moment, however, English is, in many cases, gravely taught in South African schools. Just as important as the production of large numbers of competent mother-tongue teachers, therefore, is the development of high part teachers of English who can be deployed in the rural and township schools. Again, a system of service-linked, contract bursaries and incentives to work in areas of greatest need must be implemented immediately for student teachers specialising in the teaching of English. The Minister of Education, as mentioned previously, has included English in the list of priority subjects for student teachers, and this is to be welcomed as a long overdue practical measure.But, as in the case of African language teaching, steps must be taken, over and above this, to ensure the upgrading of in-service teachers in terms of academic proficiency in the language, content knowledge and improved methodological practice. It is a unproblematic truism that any educational system which prioritises the African languages at the expense of English is destined to fail at the levels both of practical truth and educational theory. As even so avid a exponent of heritage languages as Tove Skutnabb-Kangas has ob shell outd, in multilingual societies it is essential that all learners are enabled to learn enough of the power language to be able to influence the society or, especially, to acquire a common language with other subordinated groups, a shared medium of communication and analysis (1981128).In the best of all possible worlds, learners, especially in areas where English is rarely used, would begin their schooling in their mother-tongue and then at some point switch over to English as the medium of instruction, having acquired enough English through subject study to be able to cope with it. At the same time, they would continue to study their home languages as subjects in a model of additive bilingualism. Conversely, in areas where English is able to be used as the language of learning and teaching from the outset, it is just as important that learners acquire proficiency in at least one official African language. In schools where Afrikaans is the medium of instruction, it is not unreasonable to require that in10addition to their mother-tongue, Afrikaans-speaking learners acquire both English (as they invariably wish to do anyway) and an African language.From this it ought to be apparent that there can be no single language policy which would suit every school context in South Africa. The society simply remains too different and differentiated for any one size fits all system to be practicable or even desirable.4 What is not unfair to expect, however, is that by the time learners leave school they will all have full academic proficiency i n at least one language (for the moment this would continue to be English or Afrikaans) as well as some degree of academic proficiency in one and perhaps two other official South African languages.However, even in spite of appearance this ideal linguistic scenario, there are some possibly unexpected and certainly ironic implications. For schools seriously to implement initial mother-tongue instruction (followed later by English) means that schools would have to be divided into particular language groupings, and learners would have to attend a school offering their particular language. While this does happen informally to a certain degree, a formalised policy would in effect return South Africa (at least in the primary schools) to a kind of linguistic apartheid reminiscent of a former era. Even in the unlikely event of township schools being able to offer parallel medium education in two or more African languages, there would still effectively exist a language apartheid between the various classes within the school. It is not clear whether the current proponents of mother-tongue education in this country have thought through these matters with sufficient care.Finally, there remains the question of individual choice, and this brings the present discussion full circle. In any democracy parental (and learner) choice is paramount, especially when it comes to such issues as the language in which a child is to receive his or her education. It is no small matter that this right is enshrined in the Constitution. If, after all is give tongue to and done, parents continue to insist, as the majority currently does, that their children be educated in Colin Baker (2006215f) provides a typology of bilingual education in which ten main models, each with multitudinous sub-varieties, are discussed. Which of these models would be best for any particular South African school is a complex matter, and is clearly best left to each specific School Governing Body to decide.  This is borne out by the FutureFact 2006 survey, which reveals that, apart from the Afrikaans community, between 60%-67% of all other language groups feel that English is the preferred language for education.Indeed, of the remain 33%-40% of the sample, less than 20% preferred mother-tongue education (at whatever level) the conflict stating no preference. In addition to this, 82% of the sample claimed to be able to read and understand English, and, again apart from the English rather than their mother-tongue, then the onus rests on the State to ensure that this is provided as effectively as possible for everyone who wants it. And if this does indeed continue to be the will of the majority, then the State must take far more active and extensive steps to improve the teaching and learning of English in South African schools than has hitherto been the case. No language in education policy which is labored on the majority against its will can ever succeed, and will serve only to perpetuate the unequal and inefficient conditions which currently exist in South African education.ReferencesBaker, Colin. 2006. Foundations of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism (4th edition).Clevedon bilingual Matters.Constitution of the country of South Africa, Act 108 of 1996.Cummins, Jim. 2000. Language, Power and Pedagogy Bilingual children in the crossfire.Clevedon Multilingual matters.Department of Education. 1997. Norms and Standards Regarding Language Policy Language in Education Policy. administration Gazette No.685, 9 May. FutureFact 2006 Survey. Languages. (Available at http// www.futurefact.co.za/ 2006 survey.html.) Herbert, Robert K. and Bailey, Richard. 2002. The Bantu Languages Sociohistorical perspectives. In Rajend Mesthrie (ed.) Language in South Africa, 449-475. Cambridge University Press. Mackey, William F. 1992. Mother Tongues, Other Tongues and Vehicular Languages.Perspectives 81 22(1)45-57 (my translation from the French).Metcalfe, Mary. 2007. In Sea rch of Quality Schooling for All. Mail & Guardian (GettingAhead) January 26 to February 14-5.Pandor, Naledi. 2006. Language Issues and Challenges (opening address at the Language Policy carrying into action in HEIs Conference, Pretoria, 5 October. Available at http//www.education.gov.za/dynamic/dynamic.aspx?pageid=306&id=2290. Schuring, Gerhard K. 1993. Language and Education in South Africa a policy study.Pretoria tender-hearted Sciences Research Council.Afrikaans community, between 72%-77% of all other language groups believe that English should be the main official language of South Africa.12Skutnabb-Kangas, Tove. 1981. Bilingualism or Not the Education of Minorities. Clevedon Multilingual matters. Webb, Vic, Deumert, Ana and Lepota, Biki (eds). 2005. The Standardisation of African