THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK AND RELATED CONCEPTS
4.2 THE INDISPENSABILITY OF THE MOTHER TONGUE AS THE LANGUAGE OF TEACHING AND LEARNING
UNESCO has maintained that the learners’ mother tongue is a necessary pre-requisite for the acquisition of educational knowledge (see UNESCO 1953, 2003, 2008 and 2011). The major reason why UNESCO has been on the lead on these issues is the fact that it is one of its responsibilities to offer frameworks for education policy and practice on significant and multidimensional issues (UNESCO, 2003). This is because, “Language and in particular, the choice of language of instruction in education is one such concern and often invokes contrasting and deeply felt positions”, (UNESCO 2003:14). Thus, without a clear cut position on the issue of the place of mother tongue in the teaching and learning enterprise, different countries would come up with policies that might not even consider the use of the mother tongue since the phenomenon is a contentious issue.
It is critical that the language issue be taken seriously especially with the view that mother tongue is seen as an important educational pedagogy which expedites building of basic intellectual skills and faster acquisition of a second language (Ross, 2004). However, there is the issue of multilingualism and globalisation that threaten the use of these mother tongues in education. UNESCO (2003:14) observes that:
…in many countries that were previously under colonial regimes, the official language is the language of the former colonisers and in addition to these official languages, several countries recognise national languages which may be compulsory.
This implies that these officially recognised languages are the only ones which enjoy use in the education system and consequently, the power and prestige associated with them. This therefore defeats the supposed benefits of mother tongue instruction to minority language speakers. UNESCO (2008) defines a minority language as a language spoken by a statistically lesser population and/or the language spoken by a politically relegated population no matter its size. Thus, the choices made on which languages will be used as the mediums of instruction in education typify the use of authority, the construction of ostracism and minoritisation and unfulfilled assurances of children’s rights (UNESCO 2008). UNESCO (2003) notes that,
69 minority language speakers are at a disadvantage analogous to when they receive education in a foreign language when a national language is used as the medium of instruction. However, this is not in tandem with the definition of local language offered by UNESCO (2008:6) that it is different from a regional, national or international language in that it is the language spoken in the homes and marketplaces of a particular community. This means that if UNESCO puts primacy on the use of local languages as the languages of teaching and learning, the so called minority languages should also have their fair share in education in areas where they are spoken.
Stroud (2002:48-49) observes that, “Linguistic marginalisation of minority language groups and their political marginalisation go hand in hand…” implying that each of the two variables influences the other. Thus, the continued imposition of other languages on minority language speakers mean the continued marginalisation of these minority groups from the political activities in particular countries which in turn causes the continued domination of these groups by those from the majority groups. In addition to this, there will be cultural and linguistic discontinuity between home and school and according to Baker and Prys (1998) in such a scenario, the self esteem and self confidence of minority language children may be affected as they are made to believe that their culture and language are not valued. Feelings of low self esteem and low self confidence are disastrous because they impede their learning. This implies that, immersion education, which according to Thomas and Collier (1997) say that a model in which the learner is completely immersed in a foreign language for most or all curriculum should be avoided at all costs so that minority language children may also benefit from learning in their home language.
It should be noted that issues of mother tongue education, bilingual education and second
language acquisition are a feature of multilingual countries (see for example Cummins, 2009; Hornberger, 2008; Lo Bianco 2008; Tollefson et al 2004).Despite the fact that
most countries are multilingual, UNESCO (2003) maintains that mother tongue tutoring, which generally means using the learners’ mother tongue as the medium of instruction, is a crucial constituent of quality education, especially in the initial school years and should include both the teaching of and the teaching through this language. Doing this will offer a lot of advantages like becoming proficient in the first language, success in other subjects as well as competency in the second language. As Kosonen (2005) rightly notes, children are more likely to succeed in school when they are offered opportunities to learn in their mother tongue. UNESCO (2011) confirms that research has long-established that young children master educational knowledge
70 better when they are taught in their mother language as a prelude to and complement of bilingual and multilingual schooling. Therefore, mother tongue education should be embraced especially in the elementary years and then slowly make a transition to educational learning in the second language so that they learn the second language effectively (UNESCO, 2011).
However, UNESCO (2003) observes that since there are a lot of difficulties encountered in trying to implement mother tongue instruction, it is far from being the rule. Some of the identified challenges include the following: sometimes the mother tongue may be unwritten, appropriate terminology for education purposes may still have to be developed, lack of educational materials and trained teachers, resistance to schooling in the mother tongue among a plethora of other challenges (UNESCO, 2003). A closer look at these challenges show that the primary implementer of a mother tongue education policy i.e. the teacher, would be the worst affected as his/her experiences are likely to be very difficult. The teacher is the one who would grapple with coming up with appropriate terminology for educational purposes as well as teaching without adequate resources and so on.
This scenario required UNESCO to take a stance on the issue of mother tongue education and this research is informed by that stance that I am now moving on to discuss in the ensuing discussion. After several consultations UNESCO (2003) came up with three basic principles which are useful lenses in our understanding of mother tongue education. The first principle (which largely informs the current research) is that, “UNESCO supports mother tongue instruction as a means of improving educational quality by building upon the knowledge and experience of learners and teachers” (UNESCO 2003:37). It maintains that mother tongue instruction is indispensable for early instruction and literacy and should be extended to as late a stage in education as possible. This means that all pupils should begin their formal education in their mother tongues. It suggests that if a given neighbourhood has a diversity of languages, measures should be put in place to organise instruction groups according to the learners’ mother tongues and in cases where this is inevitable, learning should be in the language which gives the slightest learning difficulties to the majority of the pupils, and specialist help be offered to those whose language is not the language of instruction. This is a clear stance which underscores the seriousness of UNESCO on the use of learners’ mother tongues in their early years. However, Arnold et al (2006) note that it is sad to note that, the norm around the world is monolingualism in official languages.
71 For the first principle to be meaningfully implemented, UNESCO (2003) highlights the importance of ensuring that the production and distribution of teaching materials is promoted.
In addition to production of materials in the mother tongues, it also recommends that educational planning should comprise at every phase early provision for the training of adequate, knowledgeable and competent teachers of the country concerned who are familiar with the life of their people and are able to teach using their local language. These submissions imply that mother tongue policy is not something that should be done in a haphazard manner but should be done systematically where materials are put in place and teachers are trained in preparation for the implementation of the mother tongue education policy. It is however sad to note that in Africa, and other post-colonial contexts, the medium of instruction policy is often a tool for the influential who have mastered the colonial languages to maintain their power and their advantaged position (Bamgbose 2000, 2005) and as a result, the ideals suggested by UNESCO (2003) above are observed and implemented to a lesser extent.
UNESCO however does not trivialise the importance of other languages in education. It also encourages, minority indigenous peoples to learn the national languages in addition to their mother tongues for them to be able to take part in and contribute to their broader community (UNESCO, 2003). Thus, consideration should be made to ensure the gradual introduction of these other languages. I should hasten to indicate that the introduction of the national and global languages should be gradual because submersion into these languages is tantamount to violating the children’s right to receive educational instruction through their mother tongue. As observed by UNESCO (2003), when introducing the second language as a subject of instruction consideration should be taken to ensure that the amount is increased gradually and that it should not become the medium of instruction until the pupils are adequately familiar with that second language. These submissions would be useful lenses in establishing the experiences of teachers who are implementing a mother tongue education policy at the elementary level. If these ideals were strictly followed in the promulgation of the Zimbabwean policy then the minority language speakers (Shangani) would to a larger extent enjoy the benefits of receiving instruction in a language they understand better. At the same time, the teachers would enjoy the implementation of the mother tongue education policy.
To ensure that the concept of mother tongue instruction is clearly understood UNESCO (2011) outlines approaches to bilingual education. I am going to present the approaches diagrammatically:
72 FIGURE 3: MODELS OF MOTHER TONGUE EDUCATION
Quoted from UNESCO 2011:21 (DIAGRAM IS MY OWN CONCEPTION)
The diagram above illustrates how important it is to have a clear standpoint on the part of a government when it sets out to adopt Mother Tongue Education (MTE), lest there would be chaos in the implementation of the policy. It is highly likely that a clear policy would succeed since every stakeholder would be aware of what is expected of them. For example, a country may adopt a bilingual education programme where two languages are used as the Medium of Instruction (MOI). In this scenario the first language of the learner (majority or minority) is used alongside a language of wider communication. Therefore, it is my feeling that if this is clearly spelt out, confusion on the part of the implementers is minimised as they are aware of what they are expected to do. I also feel that the teachers’ experiences in implementing this
Mother tongue based instruction
•The learning programme is delivered entirely in children's L1
Bilingual education (a.k.a- two way bilingual
education
•use of 2 languages as mediums of instruction
•also known as 'dual education instruction' in which minority and majority children are taught in both majority and minority languages.
Mother tongue- based bilingual education
•L1 is used for as the primary medium of instruction for the whole of primary school while L2 is introduced as a subject of study itself to prepare students for eventual transition to some academic subjects in L2
Multilingual education
• Formal use of more than two languages in the curriculum
transitional bilingual/multilingual
educationT
•the objective is a planned transition from one language of instruction to another
•'short at' or 'early exit' is a term given to programmes that involve an abrupt transition to L2 instruction after only 2 or 3 years in school
•'late transition' or 'late exit' refers to a switch to L2 instruction after a child has become fully fluent academically in L1
73 policy would be different and better than a situation where there is no clear cut position on which type of mother tongue education a country is adopting. This leaves us with questions on the extent to which African governments in general have considered UNESCO’s position on MTE. It is the intention of this research to unearth the experiences of teachers in using a minority language (Shangani) as the medium of instruction and whether or not the ideals of MTE have been embraced by the Zimbabwean government in its 2006 Education Amendment Act on the use of the sixteen indigenous languages in education in Zimbabwean schools. The reason why I am concerned about the Zimbabwean policy is that it was under the colonial rule by the British and it was normal that the English Language dominated in education. How then is the policy likely to succeed in the face of Linguistic imperialism and the hegemony of English (and even the national languages) on the minority languages? It is critical at this stage that I refer to Phillipson’s Linguistic Imperialism Theory and how it influences the likely experiences of teachers in implementing a mother tongue education policy.