published_or_final_version / Education / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Thesis (MTech. degree in Education.)--Tshwane University of Technology, 2011. / The Constitution of South Africa in its Bill of Rights and the Language Policy introduced nine more official languages in addition to English and Afrikaans which were the only languages used as media of instruction in schools before 1994. The other nine official languages now embraced by the Policy as the media of instruction in schools are isiZulu, siSwati, isiNdebele, isiXhosa, Sepedi, Sesotho, Setswana, Xitsonga, and Tshivenda. The purpose of this study was to determine how the Language Policy is implemented in secondary schools in Mpumalanga.

published_or_final_version / Public Administration / Master / Master of Public Administration

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

published_or_final_version / abstract / toc / Education / Master / Master of Education

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 1999. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 56-62).

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 1999. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 56-62). Also available in print.

This thesis reports on the relationship between an English-only language-ineducation policy and bilingual practices in secondary schools in Zanzibar. The focus is on language use in the classroom against the backdrop of a top-down and English-only language-in-education policy. The main purpose has been to gain an in-depth understanding of the relationship between the stipulations of the policy which was imposed from above and the judicious bilingual practices which are a commonly accepted as the norm in secondary schools in Zanzibar. The study employed a mixed method approach (QUAL+quant) and embraced elements of ethnography. The data for this study was gathered from two secondary schools which were purposively selected on the basis of parameters that were set in this study. Among other things, these include the secondary schools which have both ‘Ordinary level’ and ‘Advance level’, and the schools which teach the same subject using Kiswahili as the language of learning and teaching at one level, and English as the language of learning and teaching at another level. Data were obtained from multiple sources. On the one hand, through ethnography, classroom observations, semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions with teachers and students, and interviews with key actors were conducted. On the other hand, students’ test scripts, and students’ test and examination results (scores) were analysed. Both purposive and random sampling were used to get the participants. Drawing from Ruiz’s (1984) seminal tripartite orientations of language planning (language as right, language as problem, and language as resource) thematic analysis, content analysis, and the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) were used to analyse data. The findings reveal that the use of bilingual (English and Kiswahili) in English medium subjects is a resource rather than a deficit since an overwhelming majority of students and some teachers cannot function positively in the topdown English-only language-in-education policy. Most significantly, teachers use Kiswahili in English medium subjects as a strategy for teaching terminologies, abstract concepts, and unfamiliar topics, as well as for clarification of ideas and for comprehension check. The study further indicates that the examinations and tests of English medium subjects do not assess what is exactly intended to be assessed (subject matter), but instead they assess English language. In addition, empirical evidence shows that language is a factor for students’ achievements in that students performed considerably better when the subjects were assessed in Kiswahili compared to the same subjects assessed in English. The findings further reveal that Kiswahili is suitable to be used as a sole language of learning and teaching in secondary schools of Zanzibar. Based on these findings, the study recommends that the use of Kiswahili in English medium subjects should be officially recognised and students should be given options of the language of assessment as an urgent step. Furthermore, given the urgency of the need for improving students’ performance, it is now high time to introduce Kiswahili medium of instruction secondary schools in Zanzibar which should co-exist with English medium of instruction secondary schools.

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.

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