Abstract:

The demise of apartheid in South Africa ushered-in democracy that led to the country adopting a multilingual policy. The policy gives official recognition to eleven languages, i.e. nine indigenous languages and English & Afrikaans, a southern African language derived from a form of Dutch brought to South Africa by Protestant settlers in the 17th century. Hence, the Language-in-Education Policy in South Africa stipulates that all learners have a right to be taught in their mother tongue from Grade one to three. This study explores the purported benefits of employing mother tongue in the teaching of Foundation Phase (FP) learners. Through an interspersion of the qualitative approach and case study design, the article focuses on an examination of the reflection and experiences of teachers of isiXhosa (one of the indigenous languages) and explain the effects of employing isiXhosa in teaching at the FP. The sample consisted of nine FP teachers (1 male and 8 females) who were purposively selected from three public schools. Three FP teachers were selected from each school. Findings, among others, suggests that some of the assumptions made in the literature about the importance and success of using mother tongue instruction need revisiting since, in this context, they seem to be predicated on wobbly antediluvian shibboleths. The study revealed that a majority of FP teachers had not received training to teach content subjects through the medium of isiXhosa. The study also revealed that teachers encountered numerous difficulties in teaching mathematics and life skills in isiXhosa due to lack of vocabulary to match mathematics and life skills concepts. The difficulties compelled educators to attempt translating from English into isiXhosa. The results further identified a shortage of learner support material written in isiXhosa. The study recommended that teacher training institutions should provide adequate and relevant professional training to FP teachers so that they could teach in isiXhosa optimally. The study also recommended that all textbooks, readers, educational media, study guides and related literature be made available in isiXhosa. Codeswitching as a teaching strategy was also recommended since direct translation of some mathematics and life sciences concepts are impossible.

Keywords:

South Africa, mother tongue teaching, teacher experiences.