Abstract:

Although learners of the contemporary generation would generally prefer to learn their indigenous languages (ILs) using Emerging Technologies (ETs), many teachers of ILs fail to integrate ETs in their teaching. This is in part, because such teachers graduated from their teacher-training institutions (TTIs) without this skill. While some TTIs are now training their teacher-trainees in how to integrate ETs in teaching of ILs, not much is known about these teacher-trainees’ learning experiences. This study was anchored on Kolb (1981)’s Experiential Learning Theory which premises that learning is product of cultivation of an individual’s experience with his/her subjects or objects of interest (SOI) at four different stages, which form a spiral: Concrete Experience (CE), Observational Reflection (OR), Abstract Conceptualisation (AC) and Active Experimentation (AE). In a larger PhD study from which this paper emerges, sixty-seven (67) Luganda language teacher-trainees at Makerere University were enrolled in a semester-long blended learning course. In the course, trainees were exposed to, and explored how to integrate a number of ETs in their teaching. Using online observations and self-administered online questionnaire, trainees’ learning artefacts at each of the above four stages of experiential learning were collected and analysed using both Critical Discourse Analysis and Google Learning Analytics. This paper reports on results of the first stage of trainees’ experience, and concludes by proposing strategies for cultivating their experience to the next stage.

Keywords:

Endangered Languages, Emerging Technologies, Experiential Learning, Concrete Experience and Critical Discourse Analysis.