Multilingual classrooms: opportunities and challenges for English medium instruction in low and middle income contexts

This report is the product of a research collaboration between Education Development Trust, the British Council and The Open University. Its starting point was to consider the complex field of English Medium Instruction (EMI) policies in low and middle income countries (LMICs). Its purpose is to provide insight and support to those responsible for setting policy or enacting it in complex language environments around the world. The work recognises the importance given to English language by governments in the future development of intellectual and economic capital, and to accessing opportunity in an increasingly global world. It also recognises and respects the strong argument calling for education and learning to be conducted in a language spoken by learners and teachers. Navigating these two influences can appear impossible at times as they can be unhelpfully positioned as opposites. This research study set out to do two things: • Look at the global literature and draw on the lessons from existing research. • Focus on illustrating the operational enactment and levels of understanding of EMI polices in schools in two primary school contexts – Ghana and Bihar, India. These very different contexts provide valuable lessons that will help policy makers, educators, teacher trainers and schools to navigate the complexities of multilingual EMI environments

Out-of-school literacy practices - the case of Sesotho-speaking learners in Cape Town

This study investigates the out-of-school multilingual literacy practices of four Grade Seven learners aged between 13 and 14 years at Lehlohonolo Primary School (henceforth LPS) in Gugulethu, Cape Town. They come from lower-income Sesotho speaking households and live in residential areas where isiXhosa is the predominant language of interaction. LPS is one of only two primary schools in the area that cater for these Sesotho speaking learners. The Language of Learning and Teaching is Sesotho from Grade R to Three, and then changes to English from Grade Four onwards for all subjects besides Sesotho. Located within the broader New Literacy Studies framework, this study approaches literacy as a historically and socially situated practice. It examines the learners‟ exposure and engagements with formal and informal texts by identifying the diverse communicative resources they have access to, and employ in, especially, out-of-school contexts. One central aim is to specify the roles of the various languages with a particular focus on Sesotho. Using an ethnographic approach, data was gathered primarily through observations and conversations. This was complemented by the photographic documentation of literacy artefacts and semi-structured interviews with the learners, their teachers, caregivers and other household members. To gain a better understanding of their multilingual repertoires and communication networks, the learners were asked to participate in language portrait and social network communication exercises. The core research question that informs the study is: What communicative resources do participants use in different out-of-school literacy events? The study‟s main findings are as follows: (a) the learners have unique language and literacy histories with varying degrees of digital access and competence in Sesotho, English and isiXhosa; (b) standard varieties of Sesotho and English are used for academic purposes; (c) the scarcity of Sesotho literacy is highlighted by the dominant English and isiXhosa literacy practices in out-of-school contexts, including online spaces and (d) Sesotho is used in spoken interactions at home and does not feature in leisure reading and writing

Learning and teaching

Nelson Mandela University is recognised as a leader in embracing a humanising pedagogical philosophy or the ‘humanisation of education’. This is the touchstone of learning and teaching at our University for a number of reasons, of which I will name a few. It is about creating an environment that is conducive to bold thinking and questioning; dislodging outdated theories and narrow-minded preconceptions of teaching, learning and engagement in order to stimulate an alternative, emancipatory approach to higher education; and pioneering new programmatic interventions and recognitions of what teaching and learning in South Africa is about

Early childhood literacy practices in a multilingual township in Gauteng province of South Africa

Abstract : This study draws on sociolinguistic theories with the aim to investigate the nature of young children’s early encounters with literacy in their homes and the implications of these encounters for their later development as readers and writers in schools. This is depicted by five Grade 3 learners in a multilingual township1 in the west of Johannesburg, South Africa. In order to realise this aim, the study has four objectives. The first is to map out the literacy practices in which young children engage at home, in their township and at school. The second is to examine the implications of children’s encounters with literacy for their careers as readers and writers, in-school and out-of-school. The third is to examine how the children’s literacy practices manifest in their educators’ teaching practice. The last objective is to examine how children’s out-of-school literacy practices can contribute to developing schooled literacy. The investigation employs a case study design framed by New Literacy Studies (Gee, 1996; Street, 1993), characterised by an understanding of literacies as multiple and situated within social and cultural practices and discourses (Hull & Schultz, 2002). The study, conducted over two years, focuses on children’s in-school and out-of-school literacy practices using, as participants, five learners in the Foundation Phase, together with their parents, educators and Gauteng Department of Education officials. Data for this study were collected through interviews and personal observations of classroom practices and out-of-school literacy practices of the children. Findings suggest that the research approach employed in this study has the potential to examine classroom instruction that allows learners to successfully acquire literacy that meets the international, national and local testing standards...Ph.D. (Educational Linguistics

Language learning as psycho-social support: translanguaging space as safe space in superdiverse refugee settings

This paper explores language learning for displaced people in the countries bordering Syria and attempts to establish a link between the concept of translanguaging and the concept of safe spaces used by NGOs. The paper uses the term ‘displaced people’ as it is this feature of being dis-placed that the paper seeks to explore through the lens of superdiversity and its connections to spaces for translanguaging. The concept of superdiversity helps us understand the stratification and multiplication of the processes and effects of migration which lead to heightened complexity, while the concept of translanguaging has been incorporated into this heuristic to help understand how people communicate in these superdiverse settings. The main finding is that monolingual ideologies of language learning pervade the safe spaces which one NGO provides, though the aim is not to single out this one NGO for criticism when the majority of NGOs visited orient to similar monolingual outlooks which disregard home languages at a time when vulnerable adults, adolescents and children need to draw on all of the language resources in their repertoires to make sense of their new surroundings

Navigating a Course for Enhanced Pedagogic Trends: A Survey on the use and Acceptability of ‘Translanguaging’ Techniques in a South African Context

The paper explores translanguaging patterns within a South African setting in general, and within the Xitsonga classrooms at M.L Nkuna High School in particular. A qualitative approach was employed, and a case study design was adopted. The purpose of the research was to track translanguaging patterns within Xitsonga lessons in order to improve the performance of learners who use Xitsonga as a home language. It sought to clarify the impact of translanguaging in the process of teaching and learning of Xitsonga Home Language at the school in question, to explore how the concept of translanguaging served to improve or hinder the teaching and learning of Xitsonga at the school, and whether or not, teachers are effectively using translanguaging within the School (GET) classrooms. This, however, was carried out with the learners’ linguistic background in mind. The study found that teachers are not familiar with translanguaging and they do not see translanguaging as a mechanism that can help in improving the performance of learners in Xitsonga. It was also discovered that translanguaging is not used effectively in classrooms despite the evidence that some learners are doing Xitsonga at school as home language, while at home a different language is spoken. Also, the occurrence of translanguaging patterns is poor. Therefore, translanguaging is not effectively used to enhance the teaching and learning of Xitsonga Home Language at M.L Nkuna High School.  &nbsp

The reception and impact of Nollywood in France: a preliminary survey

Following a one-year pilot project on the reception of Nollywood in the London region, an international team headed by the Open University, UK, is now embarking on a wider project, which will widen the range of diasporic contexts to incorporate data collection from European cities outside the UK where Nigerian videos are distributed and consumed, such as Dublin, Paris and Berlin. This paper will report on our efforts to address the gaps in the present knowledge and evaluation of Nollywood in France, in response to Barrot's challenge that his book on Nollywood (2005:6) was but an "incomplete and subjective" study on a largely unknown phenomenon. It will consider the reception of Nollywood films, focusing on the Paris region and using Nigerian networks such as NIDO France and the Paris-based France-Nigeria Association. Based on questionnaire and interviews' analysis and survey of popular markets such as Chateau Rouge in Paris, it will focus on the reasons attracting viewers to Nollywood and the impact of Nigerian video-films on language learning and cultural practices