Embracing African languages as indispensable resources through the promotion of multilingualism

Ndimande-Hlongwa, Nobuhle; Ndebele, Hloniphani

doi:10.5785/33-1-692

Cited by 10 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…This correlates with the caution provided by Gardner (2005) to the effect that favourable attitudes to their own language contributes to less willingness to support integrativeness. Previous studies conducted in South Africa among Africans show positive attitudes towards indigenous African languages by members of society at different levels (Mashiyi, 2014;Ndimande-Hlongwa & Ndebele, 2017;Ngcobo, 2013;Sebolai 2017). Makumane (2009) is of a premise that teaching/learning a foreign language includes exposure to the target culture.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 90%

Pre-service teachers’ attitudes toward the teaching of Mandarin in South Africa

Ngcobo

Makumane

2020

PiE

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The Constitution for the Republic of South Africa (Act 108 of 1996) embraces language as a basic human right and multilingualism as a national resource. One latest foreign language to be given recognition by the Department of Basic Education (DBE) in 2015 is Mandarin, a Chinese language, for incremental implementation as a non-official optional language from 2016 in primary schools. One of the stakeholders at the centre of the implementation of this latest foreign language to be recognised, whose voice has not been heard, are teachers. The methodology adapted in the collection of data is quantitative in that pre-service teachers completed a questionnaire. The results indicate mixed attitudes with more appearing to be not entirely supportive of this move by the DBE. Teachers do not share the same sentiments that are expressed at political level about the significance of Mandarin for trade and globalisation. The findings suggest a need for the DBE to rethink this plan and training proportional to the minimum training requirements for the teaching of a foreign language to be provided to teachers. There would need to be some consultation to ensure a greater teachers' support as the project continues to be piloted and implemented in more schools across the country.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 90%

Pre-service teachers’ attitudes toward the teaching of Mandarin in South Africa

Ngcobo

Makumane

2020

PiE

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“…African languages are further marginalized in employment and academia in post-1994 South Africa (Ndebele, 2014). This marginalization negatively affects the status of African languages and the self-esteem of African individuals (Gudhlanga and Makaudze, 2012;Ndimande-Hlongwa and Ndebele, 2017). Thus, African languages must be promoted and modernized to ensure equal access to opportunities and resources in fields such as law, science, business, and ICT (Phaahla, 2014;Zeleza, 2006).…”

Section: Dominance Of the English Languagementioning

confidence: 99%

“…In South Africa, English, a non-indigenous language, is given higher status and dominance over the nine indigenous African languages (Alexander, 1999). As a result, African languages are viewed as inferior, particularly by non-Africans, perpetuating their low status in the country (Ndimande-Hlongwa & Ndebele, 2017).…”

Section: Status Of African Languagesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring Teachers' Perceptions of the Relevance of African Languages in the Digital Space

Khumalo,

Moodley

2023

IDEAS

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Digital learning is the future of education within the African context, and thus it is important to provide equitable access to educational content for all African language speaking students. By so doing, the quality of education and the relevance of African languages will be enhanced. This study aimed to explore the perceptions of teachers towards the relevance of African languages in the digital space. The study adopted a mixed methods technique and chose a sample of 10 language teachers from four high schools for the online survey and semi-structured interviews. The online survey data was analysed using descriptive statistics, whilst the interview data was analysed using thematic analysis. The study’s key findings showed that while the teachers were happy to see African languages being used on a digital platform, they advocated further for the empowering of African languages. However, there was a sentiment amongst majority of participating teachers that while African languages are important, they are however not relevant in the 21st century and that their integration onto digital platforms might be nice-to-have, but in the larger scope of things they will not prepare students for the 21st century. The findings were explained against the theory of Colonial Mentality.

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“Because guess what? I don’t even want to speak English”: English as an obstacle for the development of multilingualism at a South African institution

Lasagabaster

2024

Lang Policy

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South Africa immediately springs to mind as the epitome of multilingual language policies. In fact, its Constitution granted official status to 11 languages in 1996, and the Language Policy in Higher Education passed by the Ministry of Education in 2002 required universities to develop and use the indigenous official languages as academic languages, in addition to Afrikaans and English. With this multilingual milieu in mind, this study aimed at giving students voice in an attempt to unveil their language ideologies and attitudes by analysing their views on multilingualism and the use of English as main medium of instruction. Eleven focus groups with a total of 30 university students from different degrees at Stellenbosch University (SU) were organized to delve into four main issues: students’ perceptions on the university’s multilingual language policy; the actual use of the three official languages (Afrikaans, English and Xhosa) at SU; the impact of the use of English as the main medium of instruction; and the implementation of translanguaging practices. Despite the multilingual language policy of SU, our results reveal that there is a neatly established language hierarchy, where English reigns supreme at the top of the pyramid, followed by Afrikaans, while Xhosa remains at the base. Therefore, the preponderance of English as the language of academia only contributes to consolidating it as a strong identity factor in our interviewees’ multilingual identities, to the extent that Xhosa home language speakers disavow their own language in the academic domain.

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Embracing African languages as indispensable resources through the promotion of multilingualism

Cited by 10 publications

References 9 publications

Pre-service teachers’ attitudes toward the teaching of Mandarin in South Africa

Pre-service teachers’ attitudes toward the teaching of Mandarin in South Africa

Exploring Teachers' Perceptions of the Relevance of African Languages in the Digital Space

“Because guess what? I don’t even want to speak English”: English as an obstacle for the development of multilingualism at a South African institution

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