Who will teach a third language when we are struggling to teach two?
If the aim is to keep African languages alive in suburban schools, don’t overburden the rest of the system, says Ursula Hoadley
THERE is an urgent need to give greater attention to the quality of African language teaching and learning. But the government’s proposal to introduce a third compulsory language will probably place more strain on teachers and pupils and, furthermore, is unlikely to advance meaningful learning in the majority of schools.
The familiar “three Ts” of schooling — time, texts and teachers — highlight the implications of this policy.
First, time. The national curriculum specifically extended the time for learning a second language in Grades 1, 2 and 3 (the foundation phase), opening up possibilities for more rigorous induction of pupils into a “first additional language”.
This was considered especially necessary for the about 80% of pupils who would transition from their home language to a different language (mostly English) as the medium of instruction in Grade 4.
With a third language, the proposed “incremental introduction of African languages” policy suggests increasing the weekly instructional time by two hours in Grades 1 and 2, three hours in Grade 3 and one hour a day in Grades 4 to 12.
The number of subjects will increase to five in the foundation phase, seven in Grades 4 to 6 (intermediate phase), 10 in Grades 7 to 9 (senior phase) and eight in Grades 10 to 12 (the further education and training phase).
Quite simply, there is no room in the curriculum for an additional subject. In fact, we need more time allocated to existing subjects to deal with the backlogs that are evident in the multiple tests of pupils’ competences.
Second, there are simply not enough reading books and textbooks available to pupils in their home language, and the case is especially problematic in relation to African languages. Current African language texts are TONGUE-TIED: The government’s African language plan will be tough to implement problematic: many of them are direct translations of readers from English into African languages, without taking into account the structural features of African languages.
The element of grading a reading book is frequently lost in this process of translation. Simple English words and sen- tences, when translated into African languages, result in long, often complicated words, or even phrases, made up of many letters and syllables in the African language.
It will take a great deal of time, energy and resources to establish a plentiful supply of good African language texts. In this context of thinly spread and as-yet inappropriately designed resources, it is difficult to justify the introduction of an additional subject.
Third, we know there is an enormous challenge in the low number of teachers who graduate to teach language, especially at the foundation phase level. Excluding Unisa, in 2012, just 701 foundation phase teachers who spoke an African language as their home language graduated.
The estimated requirement to fulfil demand for African language teachers at the foundation phase level was 3 246.
The question, then, is who will teach the third language when we are struggling to provide teachers for two languages?
Recent research shows that very few universities prepare students as African language teachers, and most of these graduates are not qualified to teach a particular African language, nor are they able to use such a language as a language of learning and teaching.
We also know that the teaching of literacy, in any language, is of poor quality.
The 2013 report of the government’s National Education Evaluation and Development Unit showed very low levels of reading fluency and especially comprehension among Grade 5 pupils. Ten percent of the sample of 1 790 pupils across nine provinces could not read a single word.
Provinces are resource-constrained. Most of the budget is dedicated to personnel costs with very little left for learning resources, training, infrastructure and other programmes.
To spread resources more thinly is to leave little possibility for successful and sustainable implementation of a policy such as the proposed language one.
The policy acknowledges the need for additional language teachers in schools, and “ideally an additional language teacher per school”, but offers no clear proposal as to where these teachers will come from, how posts will be allocated and, most crucially, how these posts will be funded.
One gets the distinct impression from the policy and from comment on the Department of Basic Education website that the target of this policy is, in fact, former “Model C” schools, which elect to offer English and Afrikaans as their first and second additional languages.
This is a legitimate concern, particularly when attempting to foster multilingualism and social cohesion.
However, we should then develop a policy to target these schools specifically rather than burdening the entire system with an additional subject.
In the vast majority of schools, pupils are already learning multiple languages, including at least one African language.
If, as in earlier drafts, the policy was framed around introducing an African language (excluding Afrikaans) to schools that do not offer one at all, the problem of the majority of pupils having to take a third language would be avoided.
The proposed language policy appears set to bring further stress to an already overburdened and struggling system.
Hoadley is an associate professor at the University of Cape Town’s School of Education
It offers no clear proposal as to where these teachers will come from