Mother tongue-based teaching way to go

CHILDREN have a dramatically better chance at succeeding in life if they are taught in their mother tongue.

This view was passionately laid out by the director of the language in education policy unit in the Eastern Cape, Naledi Mbude at a Mother Tongue Based Bilingual Education (MTBBE) training seminar for educators in East London over the weekend.

Five years ago the Eastern Cape became the first province to move towards implementing mother tongue-based teaching, learning and assessment in the foundation phase (Grades 1 to 3), after the ANC in the Eastern Cape pushed for children across the country to be taught in their mother tongue.

The move was welcomed by the ANC in the province, saying about 90% of subjects were taught in the English medium and children whose first language was not English were battling to understand lessons.

In 2012, 74 schools in Cofimvaba adopted the model and started teaching subjects such mathematics in Xhosa and Xhosa textbooks were provided to pupils.

Earlier this year the model was rolled out to a further 310 schools across all districts in the province and the year of teaching was increased to Grade 4.

Spokesman for the department Malibongwe Mtima said the training seminar attended by teachers, subject advisers, department officials and teacher unions was to review the implementation, draw best practices and share some lessons from experiences, while preparing for future MTBBE rollouts.

Mbude said the most important variable that created a disadvantage and diminished the chances of academic success for black children in education was the medium of instruction. “A black child has to know English first before they can solve a maths question because the instruction is in English. [How do we] get them to solve the equation when they are busy trying to understand the instruction,” she said.

Mbude said the difficulty experienced by children, who are expected to learn in a language they are not familiar with is more when the teachers themselves are not proficient in the language of instruction.

“Some teachers know little English and teach even [less] English. This burden is carried by black pupils from basic to higher education leading them to a zero future,” said Mbude.

Speaking to the Dispatch yesterday the project administrator of the Eastern Cape education development trust, Akhona Mahamba, said this was a good policy, but its purpose could be undermined if it was not implemented properly.

“Implementation must be done properly in order for the policy to have impact,” said Mahamba.

Mbude requested that the implementation of this policy be a matter of discussion at the ANC policy conference that is underway in Johannesburg. —