EXPLORING THE TERRAIN: SCHOOL LANGUAGE CHANGE, CHANGE AGENTRY AND SUSTAINING CHANGE
2.2 Part A: Literature Review
2.2.1 The South African context
2.2.1.2 Research on post-1997 school language policies and practices
In examining the positioning of learners in these schools, Chick (2002) presents evidence that these schools are sites of struggle between competing discourses that construct, maintain and change social identities in those communities and the wider society. Three discourses - an English-only discourse, a decline-of-standards discourse and a one-at-a- time discourse - serve to marginalize the use of isiZulu and the multiculturalism of the student population. For the purposes of this study, the English-only discourse will be cited.
Given the new language education policy (DoE 1997) which promotes multilingualism, the researchers assumed that progress towards multilingualism (or at least bilingualism) in desegregated schools in KwaZulu-Natal would be evident in increasing teaching/learning of isiZulu. Yet they found that overwhelmingly participants had to negotiate their identities within an English-only discourse. The English-only discourse was particularly evident in interviews with the principals. Five of the six principals explicitly rejected the use of isiZulu in the classes other than in isiZulu lessons. They also all indicated that code switching from English to isiZulu was not permitted except in the playground or where, as some put it, the learners are “deficient” in English. The English- only discourse was also evident in the low levels of provision for the teaching of isiZulu and the limited time allocation for the subject in the six schools. Chick (2002) concludes that the English-only discourse constructs an identity for non-native speakers of English as language-deficient and for the isiZulu language as having low social and economic value and by such strategic means the English-only discourse helps maintain the existing power relationships, providing native speakers of English with a distinct advantage in the educational realm. Because of this position, a trend has developed for African parents to send their children to English-medium schools in South Africa (Kellas 1994, Zungu 1998, de Klerk 2002). This trend suggests that African parents have come to accept the perception that English has higher value and higher status than African languages and are actively pursuing a route that would give their children greater access to high levels of literacy in English. This trend has important implications for initiatives to transform
language practices in school that seek to affirm the equal value of all languages and which seek to garner parental support for this process.
de Klerk (2002) examines the growing trend of African parents to send their children to English medium schools in a research study conducted in Grahamstown in the Eastern Cape Province. The first part of the research study reports on the views of isiXhosa parents who have enrolled their children in English-medium schools in Grahamstown and who are actively promoting language shift. In-depth interviews with 26 of the parents initially involved in a larger survey revealed that the isiXhosa parents favour their children‟s learning through the medium of English for economic advancement as they view English as a means of access to power and prestige. Other studies (Bruthiax 2002, Reagen 2001) have likewise revealed the hegemony of English in South Africa and elsewhere arguing that it acts as a key to access to prosperity and power. Reagen (2001) contends that in contemporary South African society the linguistic „market‟ has created a context in which competence in English is the primary criterion for economic success and social mobility.
de Klerk (2002) reports further that the position of the isiXhosa parents is, however, ambivalent. They fear their children‟s loss of the isiXhosa language and culture and the ostracism of their children in the townships, and more than half of those interviewed support the maintenance of the mother tongue alongside the learning of English. The recommendations from the study include maintenance of the home language (isiXhosa) and adequate institutional support for isiXhosa and development of isiXhosa and other indigenous languages into major mediums of instructions.
The ambivalent position of African parents opting for English medium education while expressing the desire for their children to maintain their mother tongue is articulated in other South African research studies (Heugh 2002, HSRC 2004). Heugh (2002) is critical of several South African writers including Ridge (1996), Taylor & Vinjefold (1999) and Webb (1999) for failing to report the detail of research and surveys that have been carried out. According to Heugh (2002), these writers conveniently overlook the surprisingly
high number of parents who favoured gradual transfer to English while maintaining the mother tongue. Instead of parents wanting English to replace the home languages in education, in actual fact they want improved and greater access to English alongside the home language for their children. To reinforce her point, Heugh (2002) alludes to the findings of a national socio-linguistic survey commissioned by the Pan South African Language Board (PANSALB) in 2000 on the category of language learning attitudes which revealed that 42% of the respondents indicated that learners should have the opportunity to learn both their mother tongue and English equally well and 39%
responded that learners should learn through both English and their mother tongue, while only 12% of the respondents indicated that it is more important that learners learn in English than in other languages. The outcome clearly shows the mismatch between the respondents‟ attitudes and the actual practices in education where schools persist with English as the dominant and often sole medium of instruction.
Another critical category in the PANSALB survey (2000) was establishing the response of non-native speakers of English to the question: These days most ministers in government, councillors in municipalities and officials make statements or speeches in English. Do you understand what they are saying? Only 22% of the respondents said that they fully understood, 27% indicated that they understood as much as they needed to, 30% said that they often did not understand and 19% said that they seldom understood. In commenting on this outcome, Broeder et al (2002) observe that these and other outcomes, on such issues as understanding radio and television programmes, illustrate the fallacy of assuming that English smoothly functions as the lingua franca for intercultural communication in South Africa. Yet this fallacy still fuels language use and language choices in (ironically) post-apartheid South African schools.
Broeder et al (2002), in reporting and commenting on a large-scale language survey conducted in the Durban metropolitan area from 1996-1999 in which 10 000 primary school children participated, state that the findings point to interesting patterns of language variation. They recommend that: the multitude of languages that the children bring to the classroom as well as the bi-/multilingual home environment of many children
need to be noted by educational planners who have not made provision for this in the educational system, the language resources that children bring into the classroom should be utilized more effectively in the educational development of the child, and the desire by the children to be instructed in the first home language and simultaneously the desire to learn other languages should be noted by all involved in educational circles in South Africa. Broeder et al (2002:77) astutely sum up the language issue in post-apartheid South Africa:
It is important to emphasise the very real mismatch between the multilingual policy of official documentation and the actual language practice in government, education and business. Only if the leadership is seen to take pride in all of South Africa‟s languages; only if the schools value every child‟s mother tongue as an unique asset, and offer multilingual options; and only if the people are rewarded for their knowledge of a variety of languages in terms of jobs and status can language practice in South Africa eventually reflect language policy.
The implication that leadership particularly at state level has not supported the implementation of South Africa‟s multilingual language policy is also suggested by de Klerk (2002). de Klerk‟s (2002) recommendation calling for adequate institutional support for isiXhosa and development of isiXhosa and other indigenous languages into major mediums of instruction indirectly charges the state with promulgating policy without delivery and confirms Bamgbose‟s (2000) observation that one of the most important factors impeding the lack of increased use of African languages is the lack of political will of those in authority. The lack of support from provincial and the national education departments to schools for the implementation of the national LiEP is reflected in the findings of the HSRC multilingual education project (2004), Heugh‟s (2000) criticism of the national Department of Education in this respect and Neville Alexander‟s (2002) challenge to the state it is foolish to continue acting as though the language medium issue is one that can be postponed. Alexander (2002) notes that unless the new educational system is based on the mother tongues of the children, it would merely programme failure and mediocrity for the vast majority in the system.
The indifference to the promotion, use and development of African languages by the growing black elite2 in South Africa is cited as another factor disabling the increased institutional use of African languages. Heugh (2002) concurs with Bamgbose (2000) who observed that apart from the lack of political will by those in authority, perhaps the most important factor impeding the increased use of African languages is the lack of interest by the elite. The isiXhosa parents interviewed in de Klerk‟s study (2002) are economically advantaged, members of the „elite‟ classes, especially in light of the legacy of apartheid, which precluded black people from rising much higher than blue collar jobs until the mid 1980s. Their ability to pay school fees which are significantly higher than those at formerly black schools enabled them to send their children to English-medium schools. According to de Klerk (2002) it is these parents who are actively and knowingly promoting shift from isiXhosa to English. For political, economic and educational reasons, they want their children to be assimilated into a single unified national culture, which will probably be Western to the core (despite their fears about their children losing the isiXhosa language and culture).
Alexander (2005) speaks of the need for the African elite to prioritise the development and increasing institutional use of African languages. He asserts: “Without any exaggeration, it may be said that what is demanded of the African middle classes in general, and of the African intelligentsia in particular, is no less than Amilcar Cabral‟s almost forgotten demand that they „commit class suicide‟” (Alexander 2005:9).
Alexander (2005) notes the advantages accruing to middle class Africans who have proper command of the former colonial languages, especially English, and is aware that this elite continues to use English in the most powerful domains of society and repeatedly demonstrate to other Africans who regard them as role models their lack of belief in the capacity of the indigenous languages to fulfil all the functions of language in all domains of modern life. It is for this reason that he calls for the African elite to “commit class
2 According to Alexander (2005), Bamgbose (2000) and de Klerk (2002), “elite blacks” are financially and socially superior to the vast majority of economically depressed black Africans particularly in South Africa and use this as a means of gaining access to high levels of literacy in English. In the process, they neglect the development and empowerment of indigenous African languages through encouraging preference for English over indigenous African languages.
suicide” by actively pursuing the development and use of African languages in the most powerful domains of society.
A selective review of research examining post 1997 school language policies and practices and factors impacting on them revealed that limited implementation of the LiEP was due mainly to the entrenchment of the power of English through the pursuit of an English-only position which endorsed the value of English over African languages.
Linked to this was the proliferation of the myth that the majority of African parents preferred English over the mother tongue for their children when they preferred not either/or but both, and this position was exacerbated by the lack of political will in monitoring and supporting the implementation of multilingual education in schools thereby ignoring the real needs of parents. This position, which is reflective of negative attitudes and perceptions of African languages, is significant to this study which explores initiatives to transform school language policies and practices. Such transformation involves, among other things, transforming language attitudes, engendering acceptance of the equal value of all official languages in South Africa and elevating the status and encouraging the increasing use of previously marginalised African languages in education in South Africa.
The next part of the review in this section considers more deeply the role of language perceptions and attitudes in impeding school language change.