Why children should learn in the language they know best

RESEARCH has proved repeatedly that children undoubtedly achieve much better when they start schooling in a language linked to one they can already use quite well. Using a familiar language for schooling is a big part of such success, which is why the late South African educationalist Neville Alexander advocated mother tongue-based bilingual education.

In most cases, South African children are taught in their home language for the first three years of school. After Grade 3, the vast majority must switch to English as a language of learning and teaching.

Imagine schooling as a ladder that children steadily climb from one grade to the next. Not knowing the language of the school is like taking away the bottom rungs of the ladder. In South Africa, most may be climbing the ladder steadily - and then suddenly, around Grade 4, they find that a few rungs are missing or the existing rungs are too fragile to hold their academic weight.

There are several layers of complexity at play in the way that South African schools use and teach languages.

The first layer originates in children’s homes and families. In some African cultures, for instance some Sesotho-speaking groups, the first language taught to young children is their father’s - irrespective of whether this is the language their mother spoke growing up. Some children may spend a lot of time with carers who speak a language that’s different from their parents’. They will probably develop more proficiency in that language than in their “real” mother tongue.

In South Africa, where I have conducted much of my research, many parents choose to adopt a language that is not their own mother tongue as their children’s new “mother tongue”. Sometimes the “real” mother tongue is used so rarely that speakers can hardly remember it. This variety has produced a proliferation of terms: home language, community language, first language, primary language, main language.

Beyond their homes, children may struggle even when their “mother tongue” - a standardised version of “their” language - is used at school. The isiXhosa that is spoken in people’s homes is simply not the same as that which is taught in schools. Schools tend to use standardised varieties of languages that may differ substantially from the language used in the home.

Access is yet another issue: children who grow up in a home where there are books and who are able to access digital and paper media may not find changing to another language at school much of a problem. However, those who come from print-poor homes may struggle even when their school uses their mother tongue.

To add yet another layer, research again suggests that it would be ideal for children to continue learning primarily in their mother tongue once they reach secondary or high school. But many of South Africa’s communities are extremely multilingual, which makes it difficult for schools to cater to all pupils’ home tongues. Schools tend not to use the resources - such as language teachers and books - to support the teaching of all possible mother tongues.

Finally, importantly, English is South Africa’s dominant academic language, another factor that pushes schools to encourage biliteracy among young pupils. Once they reach university, students are expected to be literate and to have built up academic language proficiency that can be continued or transferred to English. The reality is that this isn’t happening - data collected by universities suggest that most applicants aren’t academically literate.

With all of these complexities, how can space be created for more children’s mother tongues to flourish in schools and beyond?

Read the full article on www.herald. co.zw Christa van der Walt is a Professor of Curriculum Studies, Stellenbosch University