Mother Tongue Instruction for Lower Primary School Level in Zimbabwe – A Half Hearted Commitment to the Development of her Indigenous Languages

The paper interrogates the government’s commitment to the development of indigenous languages in the primary school system as mirrored in the languages in education policy. The amended education act of 2006 dictates that in Zimbabwe’s primary schools, early learning must be done via mother tongue instruction and later on English is to be introduced, both as a second language(L2) and as a school subject taught on equal time basis with other indigenous languages. By the nature of lower primary education, mother tongue instruction is viewed as a necessity as it bridges the gap between the child’s home environment and the new school environment as well as reducing culture shock associated with the rapid introduction of a new language. It has generally been agreed that children tend to understand better if they are taught in their mother tongue (L1) In this article, we argue that this proclamation in the education act seems to be a half hearted commitment to the growth and development of Zimbabwe’s indigenous languages in so much as several other systems like teacher training and deployment practices are not in tandem and in synch with this requirement. The non availability of literature in a host of other indigenous languages mainly regarded as minor does not help the case either. In essence, this article is both a critique of the Zimbabwean policy of languages in the education sector as enshrined in the education act as well as a proposal for remedial future action to try and redress the predicament that indigenous languages have to contend with as far as early primary school education is concerned. We argue that the non committal attitude by the government to invest in indigenous languages is symptomatic of a culture that has been manifest since the early days of independence which gains expression in the absence of a comprehensive national language policy which articulates clearly the need for the uplifting and consequent development of Zimbabwe’s indigenous languages. Keywords: Mother Tongue Instruction, Indigenous Languages, Primary School, Zimbabw

The impact of family language policy (FLP) on the conservation of minority languages in Zimbabwe

This study investigates the impact of Family Language Policy (FLP) on the conservation of minority languages in Zimbabwe. Family language policy is a newly emerging sub field of language planning and policy which focuses on the explicit and overt planning in relation to language use within the home among family members. The study is therefore predicated on the view that the conservation of any minority language largely depends on intergenerational transmission of the particular language. Intergenerational transmission is dependent in part, on the language practices in the home and therefore on family language policy. To understand the nature, practice and negotiation of family language policy in the context of minority language conservation, the study focuses on the perspectives of a sample of 34 L1 Kalanga parents and 28 L1 Tonga parents, who form the main target population. In this study, parents are considered to be the ‘authorities’ within the family, who have the capacity to articulate and influence language use and language practices. Also included in this study are the perspectives of language and culture associations representing minority languages regarding their role in the conservation of minority languages at the micro community level. Representatives of Kalanga Language and Cultural Development Association (KLCDA), Tonga Language and Culture Committee (TOLACCO) as well Zimbabwe Indigenous Languages Promotion Association (ZILPA) were targeted. This research takes on a qualitative approach. Methodologically, the study deployed the interview as the main data collection tool. Semi structured interviews were conducted with L1 Kalanga and L1 Tonga parents while unstructured interviews were conducted with the representatives of language and culture associations. This study deploys the language management theory and the reversing language shift theory as the analytical lenses that enable the study to understand the mechanics of family language policy and their impact on intergenerational transmission of minority languages in Zimbabwe. Language management theory allows for the extendibility of the tenets of language policy into the family domain and specifically affords the study to explore the dialectics of parental language ideologies and family language practices in the context of minority language conservation in Zimbabwe. The reversing language shift theory also emphasises the importance of the home domain in facilitating intergenerational transmission of minority languages. Findings of the study demonstrate that family language policy is an important aspect in intergenerational transmission of minority languages, itself a nuanced and muddled process. The research demonstrates that there is a correlation between parental language ideologies and parental disposition to articulate and persue a particular kind of family language policy. In particular, the study identified a pro-minority home language and pro- bilingual family language policies as the major parental language ideologies driving family language policies. However, the research reveals that parental language ideologies and parental explicitly articulated family language polices alone do not guarantee intergenerational transmission of minority languages, although they are very pertinent. This, as the study argues, is because family language policy is not immune to external language practices such as the school language policy or the wider language policy at the macro state level. Despite parents being the main articulators of family language policy, the study found out that in some instances, parental ideologies do not usually coincide with children’s practices. The mismatch between parental preferences and their children’s language practices at home are a reproduction, in the home, of extra familial language practices. This impacts family language practices by informing the child resistant agency to parental family language policy, leading to a renegotiation of family language policy. The research also demonstrates that parents, especially those with high impact beliefs are disposed to take active steps, or to employ language management strategies to realise their desired language practices in the home. The study demonstrates that these parental strategies may succeed in part, particularly when complemented by an enabling sociolinguistic environment beyond the home. The articulation of a pro-Tonga only family language policy was reproduced in the children’s language practices, while the preference for a pro- bilingual family language policy by the majority L1 Kalanga parents was snubbed for a predominantly Ndebele-only practice by their children. In most cases, the research found out that language use in formal domains impacted on the success of FLP. Tonga is widely taught in Schools within Binga districts while Kalanga is not as widespread in Bulilima and Mangwe schools. Ndebele is the most widespread language in Bulilima and Mangwe schools. As such; children of L1 Kalanga parents tend to evaluate Kalanga negatively while having positive associations with Ndebele. All these language practices are deemed to impact on family language policy and therefore on intergenerational transmission of minority languages in Zimbabwe. The desire by parents for the upward mobility of children results in them capitulating to the wider socio political reality and therefore to the demands of their children in terms of language use in the home. The study therefore concludes that family language policy is an important frontier in the fight against language shift and language endangerment, given the importance of the home in intergenerational transmission of minority languages. The study therefore implores future research to focus on this very important but largely unresearched sub field of language policy. The study observes that most researches have focused on the activities of larger state institutions and organisations and how they impact on minority language conservation, to the detriment of the uncontestable fact that the survival of any language depends on the active use of the language by the speakers. The research also recommends that future practice of language policy should not attempt to promote minority languages by discouraging the use of other majority languages, but rather, speakers should embrace bilingualism as a benefit and a resource and not as a liability. The interaction between the top down state language policy and the bottom up micro family language policy should be acknowledged and exploited, in such a way that the two can be deployed as complementary approaches in minority language conservation.Linguistics and Modern LanguagesD. Litt. et Phil. (Languages, Linguistics and Literature

Family language policy: The case for a bottom-up approach in conserving Zimbabwe’s minoritised languages

This article focuses on the perspectives of selected members drawn from three language and culture  associations to understand their bottom-up initiatives in the conservation of minoritised languages in Zimbabwe. By triangulating the reversing language shift theory and the concept of family language policy, the study sought to discuss the contributions of ZILPA, KLCDA and TOLACCO as bottom-up players in language policy. Language and culture associations are considered important reversing language shift agents whose language  awareness and language ideologies potentially impact family language policy and encourage the use of minoritised languages by all three generations in the family. Findings of the study demonstrate that language and culture associations are vital cogs in the articulation of family language policy. They deploy a range of language intervention measures to enthuse minoritised language families to use their heritage language at home. The study concludes by making a case for further exploration of family language policy as a bottom-up  approach in minoritised language conservation, given that the core component of language transmission is its use in homes

Teachers’ language ideologies, conflicting language policy and practices in Zimbabwean education system

To date, Zimbabwe does not have an overt and comprehensive language policy. Policy is inferred from language practices in various  spaces and from pieces of legislation in education, the media and legal domains. In multilingual schools, teachers make and renegotiate  language policy through practices and choices that they make to manage classroom multilingualism. This article examines teachers’ self-reported language ideologies and how they occasioned conflicting language practices with the top-down language-in-education policy in Zimbabwe. Drawing on Spolsky’s innovation in the theory of language policy, the article specifically discusses how teachers’ ideologies about African languages and colonially inherited English predispose them to naturalise and normalise English as the default language of instruction, contrary to the provision for the use of African languages in the Education Act. I argue that the mismatch between the top-down policy and bottom-up practices is mediated in part by a lack of broad-based considerations of the sociolinguistic, economic and political factors. Together, these engender language ideologies that inform the practice of foisting English on students in the classroom, thereby diminishing transformative educational outcomes for African language-speaking learners. Teachers’ views showed that  translanguaging could be a welcome language management alternative to the ‘difficult to implement’ mother tongue instruction

Family language policy, school language practices and language socialisation among the Tonga

This study investigates the interface between school language practices and children’s language socialisation among speakers of the Tonga language in Binga, Zimbabwe. It is couched in the view that extra-familial language practices and experiences have a bearing on language socialisation patterns on the home domain. The study, therefore, examines how language practices in the school are infused with language practices within the family milieu, and is informed by the twin concepts of family language policy and language socialisation. To understand the nature of the interaction, we elicited and analysed perspectives of selected first language (L1) Tonga parents and their school-going children on how they thought school language practices are related with language choices and language socialisation preferences within the family linguistic ecology. The major finding is that children’s school language experiences and practices permeate the home in various ways. Their importance in family language policies cast children as agents of their own language socialisation as opposed to being passive subjects of ‘expert’ parental language socialisation. The school is therefore an important language socialisation sphere which has a far-reaching influence on language use in the family. It should thus be considered as a domain relevant to the articulation of family language policies by speakers of minoritised languages

‘Only Tonga spoken here!’: Family language management among the Tonga in Zimbabwe

This article analyses language management strategies that are employed by Tonga parents towards the conservation of the Tonga language. Since Zimbabwe gained independence, Tonga, alongside a host of other previously designated minority languages has endured marginalisation in terms of use in public and official spaces, leading to language shift. In the presence of dominant endoglossic languages, Shona and Ndebele, within Tonga communities, Tonga speakers have found it difficult to maintain their language. In the context of family and societal bilingualism, parents, as the custodians of the home language are better placed to manage language use, for example, by encouraging and rewarding preferred language practices and sanctioning or punishing undesirable use. This study sought to understand some of the language management strategies that parents employ to promote the use of Tonga language at home. Deploying insights afforded by the language management approach, the reversing language shift theory and family language policy, the study reveals that Tonga parents have high impact beliefs regarding their potential to control their children’s linguistic behaviour in the home. These impact beliefs tend to inform parental language management strategies