A Project by the English Academy of Southern Africa
Through the use of examples of classroom discourse from three different classrooms in rural Eastern Cape schools, this paper highlights the difference between a teacher who uses students’ talk as an ‘instructional resource’ and two teachers who dominate the classroom discourse by themselves for the most part of the instructional time.
Madeyandile Mbelani Madeyandile Mbelani is a research officer and PhD candidate in the Institute for the Study of English in Africa at Rhodes University. His MEd dissertation is an action research case study on ‘Making visual literacy meaningful in a rural context’. (m.mbelani@ru.ac.za) This paper reports outcomes from a workshop on cartoons that took place […]
Many years ago I decided something had to be done about the scrappy, incomplete and useless literature notebooks belonging to my weaker pupils. Every year it was the same story. The year would start off well: logical, legible notes would be written in the first two, or maybe three, pages but gradually, as books were left at home or someone was absent or the day was hot and I was boring, the notes descended into chaos. And yet these pupils were not trying to be difficult. What to do? After much reading and thinking I decided that I had to spend more time with the pupils formatting these books.
Many years ago I decided something had to be done about the scrappy, incomplete and useless literature notebooks belonging to my weaker pupils. Every year it was the same story. The year would start off well: logical, legible notes would be written in the first two, or maybe three, pages but gradually, as books were left at home or someone was absent or the day was hot and I was boring, the notes descended into chaos. And yet these pupils were not trying to be difficult. What to do? After much reading and thinking I decided that I had to spend more time with the pupils formatting these books.
How may the study of Shakespearean play be undertaken in the time available in a First-Language classroom?
‘Motivate,’ meaning ‘to give reasons for’ is a South Africanism that is, perhaps, a little too well established. It comes from the Afrikaans ‘om te motiveer’. In the rest of the English-speaking world, ‘to motivate’ is to impart a sense of enthusiasm or a desire to get things done. South Africans should be aware that local usage could cause confusion elsewhere.
The question of mother-tongue education in South Africa remains a vexed one. On the one hand, it seems reasonable and desirable that learners should be able to receive education in their mother tongue, if they so wish. On the other hand, there are some very real difficulties involved in the implementation of this ideal. The purpose of this paper is to clarify what these difficulties are, and then to suggest what needs to be done to overcome them.
This year I have had the pleasure, as a retired English teacher and high school principal, of lecturing to the PGCE students at Stellenbosch University who are training to become English teachers. I set them an assignment entitled, ‘English in South Africa – a double-edged sword’. I was impressed by many of the assignments.
According to the 2001 Census (Statistics South Africa, 2001:5), English is the home language of only 8,2% of South Africans. In a diverse country with 11 official languages, English acts as an important lingua franca in commerce both within the country as well as in international contacts. It follows that a solid knowledge of English opens definite social and economic doors for South African learners. Having one’s education in English will definitely give a learner ample time to become fluent in English. But is it really to the child’s advantage in the longer term?
The Constitution recognizes a total of eleven official languages, all of which must ‘enjoy parity of esteem and must be treated equitably’ (SA Constitution, subsection 6, no. 4). This constitutional assertion often generates the impression that all official languages in South Africa also enjoy equal usage. Although this might be the case if ‘usage’ includes situations where languages are used as informal or private forms of communication, the reality is that in most formal contexts such as professional environments or sectors of commerce, the majority of languages fall into disuse, except for English.