Abstract:

Education is one of the most powerful tools to develop and advance individuals’ lives. However, majority of South African students in higher education institutions across the country are denied the opportunity of expanding their horizons and achievement for they bring to the universities vast experiences and knowledge in languages that differ from the university language. Twenty years after democracy and eradication of the apartheid system in South Africa, students whose home language is English continue to benefit from the university teaching and learning while the majority of students whose home languages differ from the university culture struggle to cope with high demands of acquiring new knowledge, understanding and mastering of new information in a second language which they are not competent in. This situation has detrimental effects on the students’ development, achievement and success especially among the traditionally difficult university courses.

The study, designed to bring innovation and change in the learning experiences of second language students in former disadvantaged university of technology, implemented a bilingual Supplemental Instruction (SI) to provide students studying Statistics 1 with opportunities to source from their home language, IsiZulu, to discuss, explain, debate, and scaffold each other’s learning with the assistance and guidance from an expert multilingual SI Leader. Constructionism learning theory underpinned this study. Semi-structured interviewed were used to come to an understanding of the students’ perceptions of using mother tongue in their SI programme. Findings indicated that the use of mother tongue produced highly cognitive thoughts as students freely generated vast reflections in their home languages. Students found using mother tongue fostered deep understanding and processes of the difficult course material instead of memorisation of facts and reproduction of knowledge when taught in English only. However, mother tongue discussions generated lengthy discussions because students felt more comfortable and confident and this was time consuming. It is hoped that the study will initiate and influence policy makers towards the recognition of cultural languages in the higher education teaching and learning.

Keywords:

Bilingualism, Supplemental Instruction, Constructivism, South African Higher Education Language Policy, Cooperative Learning pedagogy.