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Language ideologies and Stakeholder responses to the proposed implementation of Mother Tongue-Based Bilingual Education in Grade 5 Natural Science.
No full textThis study investigates Grade 5 natural science teachers', learners and parents' language ideologies and responses towards Mother Tongue Based Bilingual education that has been proposed by the Department of Basic Education starting in 2025. First, it probes teacher's linguistic repertoires, their understandings of bi/multilingual education and their responses to the minister's proposition of Mother Tongue Based Bilingual Education (MTBBE) for 2025. Secondly, it investigates learner's linguistic repertoires and probes how bi/multilingual learners use their linguistic repertoires as resources for meaning making to engage with the curriculum. Lastly, it examines parents' language ideologies and responses to Mother Tongue Based Bi/multilingual education. The study draws on language as a social practice theoretical framework, dominant language ideologies, as well as alternative concepts such as heteroglossia, linguistic repertoires, multilingual repertoires, language as a resource and translanguaging to challenge monoglossic as well as anglonormative ideologies which position learners with multiple language resources as deficient. The research design and methodology comprise of an interpretivist and qualitative approach which involved purposive sampling of participants to gather their linguistic repertoires and language ideologies and responses to the proposed MTBBE. Thus, the research focuses on people's experiences, languages uses and ideologies about the MTBBE phenomenon. The main data collection tools were interviews and questionnaires. The findings of the study reveal that language ideologies such as monoglossia, monolingualism and anglonormativity are imbedded in learning materials provided in school and formal assessments administered by the schools. Furthermore, it shows that colonial ideologies of some teachers and learners continue to be a stumbling block for African language speaking learners who come from linguistically hybrid township environments where language diversity is a norm. However, not all teachers, learners and parents harboured these monoglossic and anglonormative ideologies. There were contrasting views from teachers, learners and parents who believe in the socio-economic emancipation that English provides yet asking for the promotion and resourcing of African languages as languages of teaching and learning alongside English. Teachers admit to teaching bilingually already, though this remains mainly in oral discourse. They welcome MTBBE as a new model for teaching bi/multilingual learners, if training and resources are provided. Furthermore, parents play a huge role in the promotion and preservation of African languages as they continue to speak their home languages with their children. Parents go to great lengths to translate mathematics and natural science contents from English to Setswana/isiXhosa and Afrikaans to their children and see the value of mother tongue based bilingual education (MTBBE). The study shows learners having multilingual repertoires, with the learners speaking between 2-5 languages. However, despite their self-reported multilingualism, the learners show a great preference for English over their first languages/mother tongue and as they have been socialised to believe that their African languages are not valuable enough to be resourced for content subjects such as natural science and that only standard English is acceptable. These ideologies have presented learners with negative perceptions towards African languages and is forcing them to choose English over their most familiar languages. However, there were a few learners who showed excitement about being taught in more than one language. The strength of the study has been in the way that the research questions were posed, not as a binary between African home languages and English as mediums of instruction, but in asking teachers, learners and parents about how they would feel, if education was to be provided in both HLs and English. The response has been overwhelmingly positive towards MTBBE than previous studies that have only focused on presenting the languages in opposition
The ‘four resources model' in South Africa: An analysis of an in-service teacher training intervention for literacy at foundation phase level and its uptake by teachers at a Cape Flats school
Get PDFDespite a wide range of teacher training literacy interventions in South Africa at foundation phase level, literacy results have declined according to local and international tests. This research outlines the basis of these interventions and then compares them with a new teacher training intervention based on what has been called “the four resources model” (Luke and Freebody, 1990). This intervention, designed by a specialised teacher trainer and offered by a Western Cape based NGO, is currently taking place in some schools that have achieved poor literacy results at foundation phase and is sponsored by the Western Cape Education Department. The research outlines what an intervention based on the four resources model involves, where the approach is compatible with the CAPS specifications for literacy teaching and where it diverges from the CAPS, and explores how foundation phase teachers at one school respond to the intervention in their teaching. This programme has not yet been researched and is the only teacher intervention programme in South Africa that is based on the four resources model. It differs from other interventions because it emphasises the importance of meaning making and of writing (particularly shared writing) in literacy development, as well as the role of higher order thinking, as opposed to decoding and comprehension which are emphasised in the literacy curriculum and pedagogy and in other teacher intervention programmes. Data was collected through observations of teacher workshops and classroom visits of the teacher trainer, teacher trainer interviews, classroom observations and teacher interviews. Refracted through the reflections of the teacher trainer on her decades of experience in literacy training and on the current programme design, the analysis probes the value of experimenting with an enlarged understanding of literacy as outlined in the four resources model. It charts the ways in which teachers' understanding of literacy pedagogies slowly changes and adapts, revealing how teachers start to see the possibilities of creative engagement with text types, critical thinking, engagement with children's prior knowledge and linguistic resources. While the hope is that the intervention will improve tests scores, the research was not able to verify this since the timing of the intervention does not correlate with the systemic testing schedule and release of results, nor the next international benchmark tests. The research reveals that the four resources model intervention does emphasise higher order thinking skills, in contrast to other interventions, and that this could have a positive effect on the PIRLS tests results, in the schools where it is offered. It also shows that there are limitations to the four resources model, in that it does not address the inclusion of multimodal pedagogies nor does it consider the realities of multilingual classes in South Africa
'Heteroglossia in IsiXhosa/English bilingual children's writing: a case study of Grade 6 IsiXhosa Home Language in a Township School
Get PDFThe South African constitution recognises 11 official languages, of which isiXhosa is one. IsiXhosa belongs to the Nguni language family which also comprises of isiZulu, isiNdebele, and siSwati. IsiXhosa is mostly spoken in the Eastern and Western Cape Provinces. Those that regard isiXhosa as their home language (HL) are referred to as amaXhosa. However, as a teacher of isiXhosa HL, I have observed that there is often a mismatch between the isiXhosa used by the students and the one used in the schooling context. Thus, this study explores and investigates the written language varieties Grade 6 isiXhosa HL students use in their formally assessed and informal writing. The theoretical framework used in this study reviews literature on discourse/language and literacy as social practice, language ideologies and identity, heteroglossic and translingual practices, as well as primary school children's writing in South Africa to understand the complexities of students' language varieties. Moreover, this study explores the way in which the isiXhosa HL students represent their varied language resources through use of a language body portrait. Further, issues of language standardisation in relation to children's literacy are also reviewed. This study takes the form of qualitative case study in design. Students' Formal Assessment Task (FATs), language body portrait and informal paragraph writing about their linguistic repertoire were collected and analysed. Data analysis revealed the following themes: language ideologies, linguistic repertoires, use of urban and everyday language varieties, Standard Written isiXhosa (orthography), language borrowings, as well as unconventional spellings. Themes and categories are intensively analysed in Chapters four and five of this study. This study displays evidence of hybridity and fluidity of named languages, as well as heteroglossic practices that the students employ. Analysing the students' writing was effective in helping understand how bi/multilinguals engage in writing and that, while the adopted curriculum approach to language and FAT is monoglossic, children's writing is heteroglossic (see also Bakhtin, 1981; Krause and Prinsloo, 2016). The implications of teaching languages as bounded, fixed and separate entities are explored and problematized. Chapter six of this study concludes the study and offers recommendations that are important for deliberation when teaching writing in isiXhosa/African language contexts
Interactive reflective journal writing as a tool for mentoring and teacher professional development : a case study
No full textThis dissertation explores interactive reflective journal writing as a tool for teacher professional development and mentoring. The aim of this case-study is to ascertain whether and how one grade two teacher's practice developed as a result of keeping an interactive reflective journal during the process of on-site coaching
Constructing a pedagogical third space with multilingual children: A case study of the bilingual Stars of Today Literacy Club# (STLC#)
Get PDFThis thesis was motivated by my own family's language biography, and the social justice work I have been doing over the years in bi-multilingual education. This work has involved challenging the continuation of Apartheid language in education policy in practice in schools for Black African language speaking children, the neglect of the multilingual Language in Education Policy of 1997, and the narrow perspective on literacy learning in the Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement enforced by the Department of Basic Education and the provincial departments of education. Connected to the continuing subtractive, Anglonormative, monoglossic and monolingually oriented bilingual language in education policy in practice, which teaches languages in silos as Home and First Additional Languages, is the deficit construction of Black African language - emergent English speaking bi-multilingual children. This study argues that the curriculum's construction of separate Home and Additional Language periods continues to be calibrated to the needs of White English and Afrikaans monolingual children who speak one language at home, learn it at school as Home Language, and a second language as a First Additional Language. This same policy is imposed on Black bi/multilingual children, largely regarding as problematic their rich linguistic repertoire and language resources. This deficit positioning of these children inspired me to start an intervention which involved facilitators and children in co-constructing a multilingual and multimodal literacy club as a third space that calibrated language and literacy learning to their multilingual needs and to research this intervention. My research aimed to answer the questions: How is a bi-multilingual, multimodal third space co-constructed in an after-school literacy club? How do children from marginalised communities conceptualise language and literacy learning? What are the affordances of a bi/multilingual and multimodal approach to language and literacy learning in an out-of-school literacy club? And how do children respond to a bi/multilingual, multimodal pedagogical approach which legitimises all the semiotic resources in their repertoire? To answer these questions, I drew on linguistic ethnography as my methodology. The findings show, first, that bi/multilingual children learning language and literacy desire and need the affective, social, and linguistic third spaces, physical third spaces and pedagogical spaces that value and legitimise their sociocultural resources and include their full semiotic repertoire. Thus, the literacy club, instead of perpetuating binaries, was created as a pedagogical third space that legitimised both translanguaging pedagogy and spontaneous translanguaging for meaning making. Though facilitators might plan for pedagogical translanguaging in activities to take place in any of the languages used for teaching and learning in a bilingual learning space, the children spontaneously translanguaged, and drew on their hybrid linguistic repertoire for meaning making even in tasks that required them to work monolingually, in many cases producing bilingual texts. Their meaning making processes while engaging with the activities demonstrated that emergent bilinguals are at different stages in the bilingual and biliteracy continuum, and that drawing from their hybrid repertoire helps them participate and engage meaningfully with the activities. Secondly, the findings show that multilingual languaging on its own is not sufficient for meaning making, and multimodal communication alongside their use of their multilingual repertoire enriches children's meaning making. Drawing on a full semiotic repertoire creates a third space that does not just transcend language and non-verbal communication: it creates education opportunities that build on children's sociocultural resources. These include knowledges, languages and discourses, and ways of seeing, doing, reading, and writing the world. Thirdly, the study shows that language and literacy learning require both pedagogised literacy and social uses of literacy, thus transcending both autonomous and sociocultural understandings of literacy. Finally, collaborative activities were shown to be central in both multilingual and multimodal communication. These also allow for a distributive system of skills that children bring to their language and literacy activities. This multiple languaging and collaborative process not only enriches their final written product in whatever named language the activity is assigned but creates an affective social space that takes away the pressure and stress often placed on individual learners who are forced to compete. Additionally, drawing on their multilingual and multimodal repertoires assists children in achieving cognitively demanding tasks, including translation. Translation, interpreting, multiple languaging, and metalinguistic awareness are higher order skills that create opportunities for children to think deeply about the task at hand, make explicit their thinking processes by engaging in exploratory talk, and write to express what they know and feel
Community literacy club and family language policymaking initiatives for biliteracy development
No full textBackground: Our article analyses two case studies that show an urban South African family and members of a community literacy club engaging in grassroots initiatives as family and community language policymakers and planners for bilingual and biliteracy development. Objectives: The main aim is to describe and analyse the initiatives taken by both community members of the literacy club and family members in challenging separate bilingualism, monoglossic, and anglonormative ideologies. Method: The researchers used linguistic ethnographic methods to collect data and primarily draw on image data, a written text at the literacy club, as well as transcribed data from observational data. Results: The research findings point to the critical role that communities and families play in developing and maintaining children’s home language, as well as desire and uses of more than one language to develop children’s biliteracy. Conclusion: We view children’s biliteracy development in the community and the family as rooted in the sociocultural through a process of drawing from a rich linguistic knowledge and vocabulary that is learned in context. Contribution: Our contribution to the field is in highlighting policymaking from below and how policymaking from above needs to meet language policymaking and planning from below. We also contribute to understandings of simultaneous biliteracy as opposed to separate and sequential biliteracy
Moving beyond artificial linguistic binaries in the education of African Language speaking children: A case for simultaneous biliteracy development
Get PDFLanguage policy debates in South Africa concern only Black African language speaking children rather than White English and Afrikaans speaking children. These debates construct Black African children as learners with deficits and fail to acknowledge their language resources. At the same time, policy makers fail to critique the unjust system to which they are subjected and of which they are victims. In this paper, I present a brief case study of children belonging to the Stars of Today Literacy Club to show the possibilities and ways in which these children are positioned as competent multilinguals and, in so doing, can resist the prevailing deficit view. The paper has three key aims: 1) to bring to light the racist ideology behind the current implementation of language policy, showing the specific ways in which, it constructs African language speaking children as inherently different from English and Afrikaans speaking children, evidenced by the fact that English and Afrikaans language speakers’ medium is not even debated: eventually, English becomes the preferred language of instruction from Grade 4 onwards. 2) To describe how inequality is thus created and entrenched through undifferentiated language in education policies, curriculum, textbooks, and assessments, all of which are based on the unexamined idea of the child being a middle-class English-speaking child. 3) to demonstrate how bilingual children can be positioned as capable, rather than deficient, through hybrid language and literacy practices
Languaging-for-learning: Legitimising translanguaging and enabling multimodal practices in third spaces
No full textWhile there have been significant paradigm shifts in conceptualising language in appliedlinguistics and in critiquing the historical monolingual bias in the discipline, monolingual approaches continue to dominate officially prescribed language teaching and learning approaches, curricula, policy and materials in South African education. In this paper we argue that monolingual ideologies have negative consequences for the positioning of South African learners as well as for their participation in the curriculum. We focus on how learner capacities are enabled when a heteroglossic and multimodal orientation to language practices and meaning-making is taken up. We explore processes of languaging-for-learning in two established third spaces—the first, an after-school literacy club for Grades 3–6 learners in Khayelitsha, Cape Town, and the second, a mathematics holiday programme for Grade 11 students in the rural Eastern Cape. We argue that our cases show how it is possible to bridge the gap between heteroglossic conceptions of language and languaging in applied linguistics, and what is conceived as legitimate language practices in the classroom. We conclude that the translanguaging and multimodal strategies in the two cases offer new pedagogical strategies for meaning-making that challenge the dominant monolingual orientation to children’s languaging in many classrooms
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