| Tessa Dowling on Prof Jansen's plea for multilingualism |
Shané Kleyn, Tessa Dowling
The new vice-chancellor at the University of the Free State, Prof Jonathan Jansen, said in his inaugural address, "In 2010 I will open discussion on ways in which we can get every white student to learn Sesotho or Setswana and every black student to learn Afrikaans ..." Do you think this is just wishful thinking, or is it entirely possible?
It is entirely possible! Learning a language is just a matter of wanting to say something, finding out how to say it in the new language, and then saying it. The more you do that, the more you will speak. The problem in South Africa is that people default to English because finding out how to say something in a new language is considered time-consuming, tedious and unnecessary. But the underlying message that attitude conveys is, "I am not interested in you, your culture or your language." Think of the millions of South Africans who have had to learn English as a second or third language - we now need to return the favour. There are courses and materials available to help students learn Sotho and Afrikaans so there is absolutely no excuse! 2008 statistics from the Department of Education show that out of the 590 000 pupils writing matric that year, 113 902 wrote Afrikaans as an additional language, compared with only 12 723 who chose one of the nine African languages available in the school curriculum. Why do you think so few English- and Afrikaans-speaking students opt to study an African language up to matric level? There are a number of reasons. African languages are still battling to gain prestige, not only as academic subjects but as languages in their own right in South Africa. They also have the reputation of being "difficult". Students don't want to fail or get a poor result, and unfortunately the First Additional Language papers for African languages are generally way too difficult for the average student, even if they speak an African language, to score good marks. We have to go back to the foundation phase and see how African languages are taught there - you will find that while Afrikaans teachers use a variety of effective methods, styles and textbooks, African language teachers at primary schools are not as well versed in the methodologies required for teaching additional languages and often struggle with these problems alone, in English- or Afrikaans-medium schools, afraid to ask for help or guidance. So you get the situation where for five years learners learn exactly the same thing - there seems to be no logical progression from one grade to the next and teachers are often unaware of the materials that are out there that could help them. This means that when students get to high school they are sorely lacking in the skills needed to cope with a rigorous First Additional syllabus. So in a nutshell, I would put it down to the fact that (a) African languages are not considered prestige languages, (b) teachers of African languages are not sufficiently trained in teaching their languages as additional languages, and (c) students subsequently fear "doing badly" and therefore opt for Afrikaans. How can we improve the status of African languages so that they become more attractive to school learners and university students?
We need to make them heard and seen more in the media; we need to make our university and school courses excellent as well as methodologically sound and attractive; and we need to ensure that we are teaching varieties that are actually spoken. There is a tendency to want to use "pure" African languages, but students then go out and hear completely different varieties being spoken. So the perception is, "Well, why study these languages, because I won't be able to use them, because that is not the way people speak. The age of pomposity and prescriptiveness in African language circles just has to go! What problems/challenges do teachers of African languages face when teaching these languages as second languages?
There are so many. One is that the learners get such a poor foundation in the language. Another is that English and Afrikaans are the dominant languages in the South African economy. While a Zulu-speaking child will be exposed to English and Afrikaans in the media, in shops and at school and from their parents or minders, the average English- or Afrikaans-speaking child will find that s/he can function quite well without an African language. There is thus very low motivation to learn an African language - the learner assumes that s/he can do without it. African-language-speaking children know that at some stage in their education they are going to have to learn English in order to do various subjects such as maths, science, biology. They also know that tertiary institutions teach through medium of English. They are likely to get a better job if they speak fluent English. There is thus a high motivation to learn that language. We need to show our English- and Afrikaans-speaking learners how learning an African language can help them not only socially, but also economically and professionally.
What do you think of the resources available for the teaching of African languages? There are some good ones – I particularly and unashamedly love my own company's CD ROM materials for the learning of Xhosa and Zulu: Speak Xhosa With Us and Speak Zulu With Us! A polyglot Brazilian academic told me he thought our Zulu program is the finest language course in the world! And there are some bad ones. But nothing can be worse than no materials at all. Students need to have a textbook - they need to feel secure - no textbooks and random photocopied notes are not helpful. Xhosa and Zulu have the most materials available - you can just search on http://www.kalahari.net/ to get a good selection – but the Sotho languages are far less well resourced. We need to develop vibrant, methodologically sound courses for second-language learners of these languages.
Does the government body PanSALB do enough to promote the learning of African languages?
No. They do play some role in promoting African languages generally, but I have seen nothing that they have done to promote the learning of African languages as second languages. Maybe that is just an oversight on my part; maybe their budget is too small. A couple of years ago I was granted R500 000 from Vodacom to develop a pilot TV series teaching African languages and promoting multilingualism. All Vodacom wanted was for me to find matching funding from the government. Naturally I tried PanSALB. They turned me down. I was deeply disappointed, because that is probably how much they spend on their annual Christmas party.
How do your students at university change as they become more fluent in an African language? Do they become better students as they get out of their English boxes?
Yes, they become more humble, more curious about the lives of the people who speak these languages, and more diligent. When you start to see the difference that knowing just a bit of an African language makes to your and others' lives, then you start to take the language learning process very seriously indeed. They also lose that arrogance of thinking that anyone who doesn't speak English fluently must be a little stupid, because they realise that they could also be perceived as "stupid" when speaking an African language. The students also reach out and make friends with African-language-speaking students and people in their community and this a great thing!
What about starting young? What is being done to encourage English- and Afrikaans-speaking children as young as five and six to learn an African language?
This is exactly when we should catch them! Unfortunately there are so few materials or programs for this kind of teaching - but there is a huge market out there. Someone just needs to tap it and s/he would end up with a thriving business.
Could African languages one day "die out" as suggested by Kopano Matlwa, who wrote in a Sunday Times article in 2007: "African languages will one day become an arbitrary subject offered at universities, studied only by the eccentric bead lover and a few curious others …"?
There is a real danger that African languages could one day "die out" as languages that are studied either for second-language communication or academically. Student numbers in African language departments have dropped dramatically over the years and there are very few students who opt to do postgraduate studies in these languages. It will take longer for African languages as spoken languages to die out. A language needs to have only 10 000 speakers or fewer for it to be considered in danger and we certainly have far more speakers of African languages than that. However, we should not get too complacent, and to prevent these deaths we need to do what anyone does who is a little sick – ask ourselves: What is making us sick? What is weakening us? What could we do to strengthen ourselves? What could we do to live a long and healthy life? One of the most effective ways would be to make the languages so strong as second languages that first-language-speakers would see there is prestige attached to speaking and learning an African language. If no one bothers to learn your language you get the feeling that it is not important. If everyone is not only learning it but able to speak it then you think, "Hey, my language is quite cool. Maybe I could study it at university. Maybe I could research it."
If you were given a huge marketing budget to market and re-brand and advertise South Africa's African languages, what would you do?
I would have a television series in which we teach African languages in the most innovative, exciting and humorous ways possible. We would attract people to the learning of these languages by the sheer joy and sparkling freshness of our programmes. I would fund the development of on-line courses similar to Chinese Pod and French Pod. I would also commission top language teachers of other languages such as Chinese, French and English to advise us on how to produce the best language materials for African languages. We would work together to create foolproof textbook templates for all levels of language learners. I would make billboards teaching African languages; I would have a Big Brother House of English- and Afrikaans-speaking people who would be given 12 weeks to become pretty fluent in, say, Zulu. The prize money would be huge.
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