Mother-tongue education in a multilingual township: Possibilities for recognising lok’shin lingua in South Africa

Rockie Sibanda

doi:10.4102/rw.v10i1.225

Abstract

Background: Mother-tongue education in South African primary schools remains a challenge to policymakers. The situation is problematic in multilingual lok’shin (township) schools where the lok’shin lingua is not recognised as ‘standard’ language. This article raises the controversial possibility of positioning of lok’shin lingua in a formal education langscape. Objectives: The article’s first purpose is to highlight recent international and local research which depicts controversies surrounding mother tongue instruction in primary schools. The second purpose is to conceptualise lok’shin lingua as a dialect present in children’s everyday vocabulary. Method: Data was gathered through a qualitative approach using interviews. The interviews were conducted with parents and educators at a township in South Africa. Results: Findings show notable differences in school language of instruction and the languages children speak outside school. Conclusion: Mother tongue teaching is problematic as it is incongruent with learners’ language repertoires. Therefore, a call is made for the recognition of lok’shin lingua in educational contexts as a way to promote more research into mother-tongue education.

Highlights

Mother-tongue education has been recognised as having potential benefits to young children’s performance in school (Stoop 2017)
Findings of the current study show that many households in townships are multilingual which is problematic to mother-tongue education, as De Klerk (2002), notes: Many South Africans, especially those in urban areas, are highly multilingual, and it is often difficult to identify a single first language for a particular child or assess children’s proficiencies in the languages they speak. (p. 38)
A corpus of examples produced by UNESCO (2008b) attests to growing interest in promoting mother tongue-based education, and to a wide variety of models, tools and resources being developed and piloted to promote learning programmes in mother tongue education

Summary

Introduction

Mother-tongue education has been recognised as having potential benefits to young children’s performance in school (Stoop 2017). In South Africa, like elsewhere in the world, mother-tongue education is considered a fundamental human right (Trudell et al 2012). This fundamental right is enshrined in Section 29(2) of the Constitution of the Republic of South (RSA 1996). Educationists have proposed that African language learners should be taught in their mother tongue for at least the first three years of school before switching over to English (Foley 2007). During those three years, English is taught as a core curricular subject. This article raises the controversial possibility of positioning of lok’shin lingua in a formal education langscape

Objectives

Methods

Discussion

Conclusion