RESEARCH METHODOLOGY: DEVELOPING THE TOOLS FOR INTERROGATING SCHOOL LANGUAGE CHANGE
3.7 Main research participants: Four Change Agents
Table 3.6 which reflects the linguistic profile of the four schools indicates the constraints within which the change agents were working to bring about language change in their schools. The biggest constraint was the relatively small percentage of African educators in the four schools and consequently the small percentage of educators who were fluent in English and isiZulu which was critical for the school language change envisaged by the change agents. Furthermore, the linguistic composition of the teaching staff was at odds with the linguistic composition of the learners particularly at Piper and Willy Wonke schools where more than 80 % of the learners were isiZulu home language speakers and less than 30% of the teaching staff was isiZulu home language speakers.
his learners. His attempts to transform the racial composition of the staff by recommending the appointment of African educators at the school were initially met by strong resistance from the Indian educators on his staff. Despite the resistance, Agent G had continued with his programme of language policy and practice reform at his school.
3.7.2 Change Agent L
Agent L is an Indian male in his late 40s and at the time of the research had served Bo Peep Primary as SGB chairperson for 3½ years. Agent L had been a lecturer in Electrical Engineering at ML Sultan Technikon12 for 18 years. He holds an M.Tech degree in Electrical Engineering. From his experience as a lecturer, Agent L became aware of the enormous challenges confronting African students at tertiary level in negotiating learning through a second language and therefore expressed a strong desire for African learners to be taught through the medium of their mother tongue in addition to English. He is also a strong campaigner for Indian learners in KwaZulu-Natal to acquire competence in isiZulu. This he felt would enhance their marketability. The main thrust of his language change initiative at Bo Peep Primary was to provide all learners at the school access to high levels of literacy in isiZulu. He also strongly supported the use of IsiZulu and English as dual media of instruction at the school.
3.7.3 Change Agent R
Agent R is an Indian male in his late 50s and at the time of the research had been the principal of Piper Primary for 5 years. His appointment at Piper Primary was his first appointment as principal. He holds an honours degree in Education and a postgraduate diploma in isiZulu. In addition to English, Afrikaans and Tamil, he is very fluent in isiZulu. He compiled workshop material for the learning and teaching of isiZulu and held
12 Following the recommendation by the Council on Higher Education to the National Education Ministry that sustainability and transformation of the higher education system requires a reduction in the number of institutions (CHE 2000) and in terms of the Higher Education Act (Act No. 101 of 1997) which gives the minister the power to merge two or more public higher education institutions into a single institution, the merger of Natal Technikon and ML Sultan Technikon into a single institution, currently called the Durban University of Technology, was finalized in 2003 (Draft National Plan for Higher Education in South Africa DOE 2001).
afternoon classes in basic isiZulu for his Indian educators. Since the increasing enrolment of African learners at his school, Agent R had been campaigning for a change in the school language policy and had recommended African educators for vacant positions at the school to teach isiZulu and other subjects across the curriculum.
3.7.4 Change Agent S
Agent S is an Indian female in her late 50s and at the time of the research had been a level 1 educator at Mulberry Primary for 19 years. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree, a Lower Secondary Education diploma and an honours degree in Education. In addition to English, she speaks basic Tamil and is fluent in isiZulu. She intends completing an academic course in isiZulu to improve her knowledge of the language and to enhance her classroom practice by being able to communicate more effectively with her learners in their mother tongue. Her intention is to continue making a contribution to education after retirement by offering educational assistance to underprivileged children. As a classroom practitioner, Agent S was concerned about the serious challenges facing African learners admitted to her school since 1996 in negotiating learning through English. This had motivated her to change her own classroom language practice in favour of bilingual teaching/learning to accommodate these learners. She also attempted to sensitise her colleagues to the plight of these learners and shared with them bilingual teaching/learning strategies she used in her classes. The main thrust of her school language change initiative was to change the classroom language practices of all educators within the school by transforming teaching/learning exclusively in English to bi- or multilingual teaching/learning.
The language change positions adopted by the different change agents may be summarized thus. Agents G, R and L were keen to bring about macro level change by campaigning for a change in the school language policy that involved the offering of isiZulu as an additional language and the use of both English and isiZulu as LOLTs, and by facilitating a change in the racial composition of the staff through appointment of increasing numbers of African educators at their schools. While Agent S was also
interested in institutional language change, her focus was primarily on micro level change of transforming classroom practice to address the linguistic diversity of learners.