Abstract:

One of the main objectives of education is to provide learners with skills that will develop good qualities like hard work, morality, honesty and humanity so that they become better citizens in their future lives. To achieve these qualities, the education system of the country should be comprehensible and effective so that it affords learners with opportunities to participate fully in the political, religious and socio-economic organisations of the country. The aim of this paper was therefore, to examine challenges that African learners face in classrooms where English is used as a medium of teaching and learning. In the discussion, it was argued that English as a medium of instruction, serves as an impediment in the progress of African learners who for the first time have to speak and write in the language that is foreign to them. This affected their performance, and consequently, many had to drop out of school as a result of frustration. The researcher interpreted this state of affairs within the context of geographical learning theory. This research used qualitative method because human learning or study is best researched by using qualitative data. The population in this research paper comprised learners, teachers and members of the community, and the location of research was Meloding Township in Virginia, South Africa. As the qualitative data collection usually uses a typically small sample size, twenty five (20) people were interviewed. The findings revealed that learners who come into contact with the new language in the learning environment experience a great deal of anxiety, and high failure rate becomes the order of the day. In conclusion and recommendations, it was suggested that the learners should learn in mother tongues in order to achieve objectives of education.

Keywords:

Africans language, education, learners, anxiety, mother tongue, failure rate.