Perceptions and experiences of the role and process of coaching in the Gauteng Primary Language and Mathematics Strategy : a case of four teachers, their coaches and supervisors.

This study explores the coaching component of the GPLMS over the past 3 years, how it has been implemented as well as the lessons learnt with the view to understanding the coaching conditions required to assist teachers in changing their instructional practices. The GPLMS intervention consists primarily of instructional coaching which has to mediate lesson plans to teachers. This research specifically looks at the teacher-coach relations, the nature of coaching support and monitoring and its impact on teachers. Research data were collected through interviews of teachers in one FP school and one Intersen school in the Johannesburg South district as well as from two coaches and their supervisors. A Peer Learning Group (PLG) meeting in one school and a School-Based Workshop (SBW) in the other school were observed. GPLMS documents which include lesson plans and teacher observation sheets were analysed. The data analysis reveals that instructional coaching combined with high quality lesson plans are promising interventions with potential to improve teachers’ instructional practices. Much progress, however, depends on the coaches’ interpretation of their role as well as their attributes and qualities as far as the level of their subject knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge and the respect and trust between themselves and their teachers are concerned

A district beginner teacher induction initiative in South Africa: The pressure and support contestation

The main aim of this paper is to explore an approach to beginner teacher induction in a Johannesburg, South Africa education district’s induction programme. It focuses on how the idea of beginner teacher induction is conceptualised by examining the district induction programme’s teaching form and foci. Data were collected through interviews with four district officials coordinating and facilitating the district’s teacher induction programme. While it is apparent that beginner teacher induction is being prioritised due to the pressing need for South African teacher professional development initiatives to work more towards developing and strengthening a repertoire of sound instructional practices. Findings indicate that current teacher induction practices offered by the selected district are somewhat misaligned with this imperative. The teaching form and foci of the districts’ induction programme reveals serious contestation as pressure to perform is exerted rather than supporting teachers early in their careers. The activities therein are evidently more focused on familiarising beginner teachers with legal frameworks that govern and regulate their duties as members of the public service. Although the district induction programme has an overarching aim of developing beginner teachers’ pedagogical practices, upon implementation, the emphasis is on accountability and pressure at the expense of developmental support and capacity building.

Shona metaphors created during the Zimbabwe crisis: A cognitive grammar analysis

Shona is a Southern Bantu language that is spoken by about 75% of Zimbabweans. This article discusses the nature of metaphors that were created by Shona speakers in speaking of the Zimbabwean political and socio-economic crisis. The data for this study were collected from August to December of 2008 and their analysis derives from Cognitive Grammar theory, which considers metaphor as a conceptual and linguistic phenomenonthat involves a mapping relation between the source domain and the target domain of language. We adopt the cognitive view of metaphor as one of the basic human strategies in conceptualizing our environment using concrete phenomena such as moto ‘fire’ and kudhakwa ‘to drink’ to represent abstract concepts such as difficulties and confusion. This type of metaphorical extension is worth examining as it plays an important role in the development of the language’s lexicon.Le shona est une langue bantoue du sud qui est parlé par à peu près 75% des habitants de Zimbabwé. Cet article discute des métaphores qui ont été créées par les locuteurs du shona dans leurs références à la crise socio-économique et politique de Zimbabwé. Les données linguistiques proviennent des enquêtes faites entre août et décembre 2008 et sont analysées dans le cadre de la théorie de la Grammaire cognitive, qui traite la métaphore comme un processus de créer des liens ‘cartographiques’ entre les domaines de source et de cible linguistiques. La métaphore est un stratège de base intellectuel qui sert à représenter le monde en employant des notions concrètes comme moto ‘feu’ et kudhakwa ‘intoxication’, et kurova ‘être battu’ pour représenter des conceptes abstraits comme les difficultés et la confusion. Cette sorte d’extension métaphorique mérite l’analyse car elle joue un rôle important dans le développement du lexique

Comparing vowel hiatus resolution in ciNsenga and chiShona: An Optimality Theory analysis

This article seeks to contribute to typology by presenting a formal comparative analysis of repair strategies used to resolve vowel hiatus in ciNsenga and chiShona. In these two languages, hiatus resolution is sensitive to phonology and morphosyntax such that hiatus resolution strategies apply differently depending on the phonological and morphosyntactic context. Across the prefix + noun stem boundary and within the Inflectional Stem, V1 undergoes “resyllabification” (Myers 1987:222) in the form of glide formation, secondary articulation and elision. An interlinguistic difference occurs when V2 is MacroStem-initial: in ciNsenga, hiatus resolution is blocked but in chiShona spreading is triggered. We follow Mudzingwa (2010) in proposing that resyllabification in chiShona is blocked at the Prosodic Stem edge by an alignment constraint (ALIGNL-PSTEM) that requires the left edge of a Prosodic Stem to align with the left edge of an onset-full syllable. We argue that resyllabification and glide epenthesis in ciNsenga are blocked when V2 is MacroStem-initial because ALIGN (ROOTVERB, L,σ,L) outranks ONSET and ALIGNL-PSTEM. Crucially, this article demonstrates that whilst vowel hiatus resolution is categorical in chiShona, it is domain-specific in ciNsenga.Keywords: CiNsenga, ChiShona, hiatus resolution, Optimality Theory, resyllabificatio

Hiatus resolution in Xitsonga

Vowel hiatus is dispreferred in many languages of the world. Xitsonga, an understudied cross-border Southern Bantu language spoken in South Africa, Mozambique, Swaziland, and Zimbabwe, employs a set of four hiatus resolution strategies: glide formation, secondary articulation, elision, and coalescence. Glide formation is the primary repair strategy, as it shows a least violation of faithfulness. In glide formation, /i/ and /u/ correspond to [j] and [w], respectively. It is blocked when V1 is preceded by a consonant, as this would incur a fatal violation of *COMPLEX. When glide formation is blocked, secondary articulation is the next preferred option. One of the interesting features of Xitsonga is that it allows secondary articulation involving mid-vowels /o e/. The Obligatory Contour Principle (OCP) is often the trigger for elision, the least preferred strategy. Vowel coalescence can take two forms in Xitsonga, namely /a + i/ → [e] and /a + u/ → [o], both of which incur a non-fatal violation of UNIFORMITY. When coalescence is blocked due to an impermissible sequence of /a/ and another vowel (excluding /i/ and /u/), the /a/ is elided. We argue that a single constraint hierarchy is responsible for these seemingly disjointed repair strategies. The overall significance of this paper lies in the fact that it is the first consolidated description and formal analysis of vowel hiatus resolution in Xitsonga.Keywords: Xitsonga, hiatus resolution, Optimality Theory, repair, glide formation, elision, coalescence, secondary articulatio

Currency reforms in Zimbabwe : an analysis of possible currency regimes

The Government of Zimbabwe (GoZ) adopted a multiple currencies regime (MCR) in February 2009 and demonetized the Zimbabwean dollar in July 2009 after almost a decade of economic crisis. The MCR approach resulted in stabilizing the Zimbabwean economy; however, there are remaining concerns that need to be addressed. The purpose of this paper is to explore various options of currency regimes that could be adopted in the short and medium term in order to consolidate economic stabilization and recovery in Zimbabwe. The debate on currency reforms comes at a favourable juncture in the country's recent political economy, marked by the signing of the Global Political Agreement in September 2008 and the inauguration of the Government of National Unity in February 2009. In March 2009 the Government adopted the Short Term Emergency Recovery Programme (STERP) whose major goal is to stabilize the economy through increasing capacity utilization in all sectors of the economy, ensuring availability of basic goods and services and rehabilitation of collapsed infrastructure and service delivery. Since the adoption of the MCR there has been a marked decline in inflation to single digits, an increased availability of basic goods and services, as well as a slow recovery in capacity utilization. However, further progress is hampered by the biting liquidity crunch that is affecting the financial sector which is worsened by the loss of lender-of-last-resort function of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe. An analysis of the data suggests that at the core of the economic crisis was the Government's inability to borrow from domestic and international debt markets leading to excessive money printing to finance the budget deficit. This led to hyperinflation, worsening social conditions, negative GDP growth, and worsening balance of payments position. The paper's review of international experiences of economic crises highlights a number of conditions crucial for a successful currency reform. These conditions are: monetary policy reform, fiscal reforms, central bank reforms, socio-economic convergence, establishment of social safety nets, financial sector reforms, re-engagement with development partners, structural reforms, and strong leadership and political commitment. The paper also places emphasis on timing and sequencing of reform actions. The paper proposes that the optimal choice of a particular currency regime be based ona framework that takes into account the following: (a) the advantages and disadvantages of a particular regime, (b) the need for correct timing and sequencing of policy tools and reform actions, (c) the prior capacity conditions in the country, and (d) the political commitment to undertake the necessary reforms. It is imperative to note that these reforms are no quick fixes for designing economic stabilization and recovery programs needed in Zimbabwe. The Zimbabwean authorities and stakeholders need to fulfil the aforesaid preconditions for successful currency reform, before collectively selecting from among the various options

Public Debt Composition, Debt Policy Rules and Growth in Selected SADC Countries

Purpose: This study examined the relative effect of debt composition and debt reduction policy rule on economic growth in selected SADC countries which are Mauritius, Tanzania and Zimbabwe. Design/Methodology/Approach The Markov-switching method was used to estimate the debt growth model for the period 1990Q1-2016Q4 Findings:. The effects of debt proved to be regime dependent which supports the time effects of debt in all countries. High external debt relative to domestic debt had positive effect on growth in Tanzania which is a good reforming country and had negative effects in the case of Zimbabwe which is a debt distressed country. In comparison to Mauritius, a domestic debt dependent country, high domestic debt relative to external debt had negative impact on growth.  The effects tend to rise with market pressure and government consumption behaviour. A negative real effect of debt reduction policy rule was confirmed for Zimbabwe and irrelevance in countries with less threat of debt distress. Implications/Originality/Value Therefore the study found support to the quantity-effect rather than type-effect of debt on growth. We recommended that countries should consider both time and quantity effects of debt in debt management; adopt explicit debt reduction rules which constrain fiscal behaviour and force policy commitment towards debt stabilization. &nbsp

Modelling and optimisation of water loss management strategies in a water distribution system: a case of Moshi Urban Water Supply and Sanitation Authority (MUWSA)

A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master’s in Mathematical and Computer Sciences and Engineering of the Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and TechnologyWater loss in water distribution systems (WDS) is a serious problem in developing countries. A lot of water is lost on its way from the sources before reaching the consumers due to leakage, illegal use, and theft of infrastructures among others. The effect of water loss in the WDS includes reduction of revenue, water shortage, disruption of water quality, and inflation of operation and maintenance cost of the water authorities. The control of water loss in the WDS is closely dependent on the commitment of the decision-makers, the strategies used and budget set for water loss management (WLM). This study presents a combined model of Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) and Integer Linear Programming (ILP) methods which may help decision-makers to prioritise and select the best strategies for WLM. The MCDM family methods; the MAVT, SMARTER, SAW, and COPRAS were used to evaluate and prioritize the strategies, while ILP was used to select the best strategies. Additionally, the study compared the SAW and COPRAS methods in prioritising and selecting the strategies. The data used were collected at MUWSA. The results show that the COPRAS and SAW methods rank the given alternatives differently while when integrated with the ILP technique, the formulated models select the same portfolios of alternatives. Thirteen alternatives which cost 97% of the total budgets set for WLM were selected. Furthermore, the ILP models showed robustness in selecting the portfolio of alternatives as they select the same alternatives despite the ranking of alternatives and change of weights of evaluation criteria. Finally, the study proposed the decision model framework which can be used by decisionmakers to evaluate and select the best strategies for WLM in WDS

The Effects of Shona Language Change on Monolingual Lexicography: The Need for a Revised Alphabet

In this article, the phenomenon of Shona language change, its effects on lexicography and the need for a revised alphabet are discussed. Because of the defective Shona alphabet, lexicographers at the African Languages Research Institute (ALRI) encountered problems in handling some words that were potential headwords in dictionaries they were compiling under the ALLEX project. The current Shona alphabet is unable to realize quite a number of sounds and morphemes in lexical items in everyday use by the native Shona speakers, because they are alien loanwords. The article was prompted by the challenges encountered during the compilation of Duramazwi reMimhanzi (Shona Musical Terms Dictionary). It shows how language change accounts for the problem of headword selection and how modifying the current alphabet can enhance monolingual Shona lexicographical work vis-à-vis the development of the Shona language. It therefore stresses the need for a revised alphabet so as to solve orthographical problems during dictionary compilation. Keywords: Language Change, Allex, Lexicon, Segment, Suprasegment, Alphabet, Lexicography, Assimilation, Borrowing, Adoption, Articulation, Sound

From 'business as usual' to 'business unusual': Online academic literacy development for education students during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Covid-19 pandemic brought about restrictions on physical interactions, which in many ways changed how we live and work. Due to these restrictions, writing centres at universities and other educational institutions around the world had to transition from traditional ways of supporting students to online or remote methods. To save the academic year, Wits University’s teaching and learning and other student support programmes, including the Wits School of Education Writing Centre (WSoE WC), were compelled to adopt Emergency Remote Teaching and Learning (ERTL). Transitioning to ERTL meant1 reimagining student support in an online mode. This paper explores how the WSoE WC transitioned from face-to-face student consultations to offering online academic literacy support and development. The paper highlights the adaptation process in the transition, particularly how the WSoE WC dealt with the varying complexities accompanying ERTL. The main question guiding this exploration is: How did the WSoE WC negotiate the move to online academic literacy support and development during the Covid-19 pandemic? Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with the director of the WSoE WC, who steered the adoption of the online mode and the peer tutors who worked directly with students online. The findings show that transitioning to the online mode during ERTL was difficult and complex. However, collective and individual agency enabled continued student academic literacy2 support despite disruption and change. This paper contributes to the ongoing conversation around the role of writing centres at universities in South Africa and beyond, particularly during disruptions.