Appendices
Appendix 5: Extracts from Interview with Prof
R. Now did you write that even though you hadn'tbeen to Durban?
P. Well,you seeat that time even if you didn't go to Durban but you weresupposed to lie.
R. To make up?
P. Yah, yah to make it clear that you can do this.
R. Yah, okay,so if you look back on your primary school up until standard five, how many compositions didyou write in English?Okay, well let's start,how many compositions did you write in Zulu? Now a lot of students that I've spoken to said well in the primary school when they wrote a letter in Zulu they wrote the same thing in English, they wrote a composition in Zulu, they wrote the same thing in English. Is that right?
P Well it's ...where the school that I work it's different, like you see in my school where I was schooling in primary, like per year, because I started to write at standard, standard three, and per year we used to write about four compositions.
R. Per year?
P. Yah,per year, Four compositions three letters ... after that maybe one essay. R. What's the difference between a composition and an essay?
P. Well you see what I say I'm getting to the [inaudible] like, okay, you see what they taught us is they say, okay, the essay, the composition especially, they've got those rules like you have to go one. The essay when you write the essay, you can put it as how you want things to be, or you put things as how they, we be by your arguments, like when you put a speech in a way of writing this paragraph.
R. You mean in an essay it's like [inaudible]
P. Yes.
R. So what topic would you write in an essay?
P. Like as others said in English,well, 'the school that I like'. You see you have to put some arguments and after that you put some, some examples and you put some facts around that yah. And after that maybe a composition is like you want to analyse something and you go straight to that, and you don't put any fact or arguments on that, yah.
R. So a composition is seen as more of a story?
P Yah.
R. Okay, alright, so you would say in Zulu you write four compositions a year and, say, three letters?
P. Yes three letters.
R And in English also another four, or what?
P. In English it was maybe three letters and two compositions.
R. Two compositions, okay. Alright, that was a fair amount of writing over you primary school year. Okay, no ... when you came to high school here what happened in terms of essay and letter writing?
P. Okay, when I came to school life was sensible, no difference from primary, 'cause when I came to school I was told to be responsible and when I've given that work I have to do it at that time. And they had taught me to write some special essays where you have to go and research before you write. And we used to write some letters, just the letters were the same as primary, but when you wanted to do a composition or an essay you have to go and do some research to the different people, and after that you have to write your essay. And what I've learnt again is how to write a dialogue, this is what I learnt and ah I've learnt how to write a debate. When you want to do a debate here what do you have to do, like you have to go and do the research, like if if! give you a topic say' a man is better than a woman', or maybe if! say 'a man is not a man without a woman', so then if! want to do that, the argument with that, I have to go and do the research both sides, the mans and the woman's, and I come back with my facts. And I'll see to my opponent what they will say.
R. Now you're talking about debates, talking about opponents. Now did you speak the debates or did you write them?
P. Well I've done a debate once I was doing standard seven, yes, I was doing standard seven when we got a talk.That was saying 'a man is not a man without a woman', and I made a mistake in that, though they told me cause I had done some research on [inaudible]
side, and I came back with that, but I've tried and it was more difficult because I didn't do my research properly, yes.
R. Okay, so now when you are saying debates did you actually write essays or compositions that with a debate in ...
P No I was just taking the main points and I would work on them step by step.I was not just writing.
R. But now was this an essay topic that was just set, or was it to prepare for an oral debate?
P. Itwas, it was you see no, I was just giving you an example for that topic, but the topic
says 'a man is not a man without the woman', it was a debate topic.
R. Okay,soyou haven't actually had an essay topic where you had to write a composition saying argue for this point?
P. Yes.
R. You haven't had that.
P. No,no.
R. Okay,so how many essays have you written in Zulu and how many in English in the year since you'vebeen in [school X]?
P. Probably, in Standard seven I when I can remember properly I've made we ...two essays in Zulu,and in English it was only one. After that I don'tremember.
R. And the letters?
P. The letters were quite a lot 'cause it's about six or seven letters.
R. Okay, and in Standard eight?
P. Standard eight,nothing.Itwas just three, because nothing was new, wejust stayed at the [inaudible] ... basically we were forced to stay with the language, we had to push the language.
R. So you didn't do any, you didn't write any compositions?
P. If! do remember, let me think,in Zulu we done two compositions two, two and none essay,and letters, how many, it was about three letters.
R. And in English?
P. In English, we've done only one letter and two compositions.
R. Okay,and in Standard nine?
P. Standard nine we had,we had, two compositions, one essay and four letters. R. Is that across both, in English or in Zulu?
P. Both.
R. Okay, both. Alright, so that gives me a picture...now how were you taught to write,what