Although this blog was written about the South African province in which I live, it’s probably true of the whole of South Africa, and many other countries in which most ordinary people – and their children - speak a different language from the dominant one.
If your children are English (or Afrikaans) speaking they have one supreme advantage over every other child in the Eastern Cape education system. They understand what is being said, written and read in the classroom.
That’s quite an advantage, you will agree.
If your children are not English speaking, chances are good that they have to jump a hurdle that their English or Afrikaans friends don’t even notice.
That hurdle is language. About 1.2 million isiXhosa speaking kids learn and are taught in a foreign language, in a province where the majority of people speak isiXhosa. Seems crazy, doesn’t it?
We shouldn’t be surprised. After all, English is the language of the economy, politics, commerce, and of a huge body of international literature and culture. And Afrikaans may not be international, but you can write the matric exams, study at university, and run a business in Afrikaans. No such thing, apparently, in isiXhosa. Even our proud Eastern Cape Universities who taught the likes of Mandela, Tambo, Biko and Sobukwe use English for teaching.
Clearly, then, isiXhosa kids must just learn in English and like it.
There’s one big problem here. Children (and adults) learn far more easily and more profoundly in the language of home and family. After all, they grew up hearing, speaking, singing, shouting, dreaming, joking and playing with the language of home. Language is a deep part of our identity, as intimately a part of us as the blood passing through our hearts. We are comfortable with it; we can understand and express complex concepts that we could never articulate in a different language.
Imagine what happens when, as young children, we have to learn in a less-than-familiar language.
First, our understanding of the words and the structure of the language prevents us fully comprehending what is being said to us. We can’t hear properly. Second, our command of the language prevents us articulating our thoughts as effectively. We can’t speak properly. Thirdly, and most importantly, we can’t even begin to understand complex concepts using a language whose shape we don’t know. We can’t think properly. How can we expect a primary school child to learn if we put up such barriers?
Forget grade 12, forget university, forget even finding a job in the English-speaking world. Unless children build an understanding of what they’re learning, they’ll never even get to matric.
According to the latest statistics, 98% of Afrikaans kids from grade 1 to 4 learn in Afrikaans and 100% of English kids learn in English. But only 56% of isiXhosa speaking children in grade 1 – 4 learn in isiXhosa. This has enormous effects on their competence at school.
By the time Eastern Cape children get to the sixth grade, over three quarters are not competent in the language in which they are taught. No prizes for guessing which children those are. Not the Afrikaans kids, nor the English ones. If you don’t understand the language in which you are taught, how can you expect to understand the content?
Children who learn in their home language typically get 22% more in maths, 34% more in language, and 25% more in natural sciences.
Of course, language is a proxy for race, and race is a proxy for deprivation and poverty. Poor children are more likely to be from isiXhosa families, and to have fewer resources at home and at school. They have plenty stacked against them already. So why do we put up this extra barrier?
Because of the deep love of parents for their children. They are determined to give them the best chance possible in this life. They dream that their children will never suffer the deprivation, unemployment and poverty that they had to face. Parents want their children to use English fluently – so they choose English as the language of learning and teaching. Is it coincidence that Qumbu, Mthatha, Ngcobo, and Libode have the lowest percentages of young children learning in their mother tongue?
The parents are not wrong. Children SHOULD learn to speak, read and write English extremely well. A good grasp of the language of international power is necessary to everyone – but not at the expense of their education. All children should learn in their home language, right up to and past grade 12. And don’t tell me that isiXhosa doesn’t have the flexibility, beauty and expressiveness to articulate complex concepts right up to university level. We will only have the text books, the exam papers, and the vocabulary when parents demand them.
Meanwhile, there’s nothing stopping our children learning any other language – including English – extremely well.
In fact, English as a second language is as important as mathematics and science, if not more so. It should be taught by specialist teachers whose home language is English – but in your dreams would you catch Ms Anglo-Saxon teaching at Woza Woza High in Qumbu or Libode.
Which brings me to my last point: I take responsibility for this, dis ook my skuld, luxanduva lwam nam olu, mea culpa. Between them, my English speaking children know less than a smidgen of isiXhosa. That’s like going to school in Italy or Germany and never bothering to learn the language of most people. How arrogant!
We all need to send the message that all languages, including isiXhosa, are worthy of study and enjoyment. And that includes we Abelungu.
