The Language in Africa Special Interest Group (LiASIG) of the British Association for Applied Linguistics (BAAL) is a forum for applied linguistic research in Africa, and invites studies with both a micro and a macro focus. Researchers are concerned with how political, social and educational contexts affect the valuation and use of languages in Africa where multilingualism is the norm. Papers are presented at the SIG annual meeting and in the LiA track at BAAL conferences. The present review covers papers presented between 2012 and 2014 that focus on the interplay of policy and practice, particularly in education.
Matters of language policy are significant in African countries, and how language affects development and education is highly contentious. The majority of sub-Saharan countries maintain ex-colonial languages as languages of education and administration, which limits participation by a large proportion of the population.
While full enrolment in primary education is the second of the United Nations’ eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) (United Nations 2014), the question of language is not included. The value of indigenous languages (ILs) in education is perhaps the most hotly contested area in African education. Yet there is a growing realisation of the value of local languages in propelling initiatives in key MDG areas, particularly reduction of child mortality, improvement of maternal health, and combating HIV/AIDS and other diseases. Omoniyi (Reference Omoniyi2014) described how in Nigeria, EnglishPlus, a project-in-development to create a place for ILs in spaces previously reserved for English, is gaining impetus, giving rise to hopes that ‘indigenous language capital’ may finally come to be seen as a resource in national development rather than an obstacle.
In the area of formal education, use of mother tongues as medium of instruction (MoI) provides a vital base for concept learning in the early school years and for initial literacy. However, the majority of sub-Saharan governments persist with policies confining the use of ILs to grades 1–3. Afitska et al. (Reference Afitska, Ankomah, Clegg, Kiliku, Osei-Amankwa, Rubagumya, Tikly and Barrett2013) give an illuminating account of language-in-education dilemmas in two African countries: Ghana, where the role of ILs in education is restricted, and Tanzania, where Swahili is the MoI in primary education and the change to English as MoI in secondary school is especially problematic. In general, the absence of a coherent strategy for bilingual education results in unsatisfactory preparation for learning through English.
The weak development of school instruction in ILs has repercussions even in higher education. In South Africa, where the 1996 constitution recognises nine indigenous languages, Afrikaans and English, it is official government policy to develop ILs in education. The University of KwaZulu-Natal now offers bilingual courses in Zulu and English in selected disciplines. However, preliminary findings of a study of reading proficiency in Zulu among first language (L1) students suggest they feel insufficiently prepared to learn solely through Zulu (Wildsmith-Cromarty & Mhlophe Reference Wildsmith-Cromarty and Mhlophe2014).
In countries with English-only policies, teachers develop strategies to enable active student participation in learning, although often the learning is reproductive and uncritical. An ethnographic study of three schools in The Gambia revealed extensive use of code-switching and other strategies to meet pragmatic and pedagogic needs, with patterns that differ between urban and rural areas (McGlynn Reference McGlynn2013).
In Ghana, the USAID-funded National Literacy Acceleration Program (NALAP), introduced in 2009, provides a structured programme in which any of 11 indigenous languages can be used as MoI from kindergarten to the end of Grade 3. In bilingual schools offering this programme, language and literacy lessons are taught in two parts, first using the selected IL and then in English using English texts. However, teachers and pupils use either of the languages where necessary. Ansre (Reference Ansre2013) sampled monolingual, bilingual and multilingual schools in the Ga District and Volta Region. Besides widespread problems of weak teacher training and lack of resources, the actual choice of language was problematic; for example, the teacher was not fluent in the language or a high proportion of pupils did not speak the school language.
In Anglophone Africa, parents often attempt to maintain the indigenous language of the home while desiring English to be the language used at school. However, with the expansion of education, English is becoming part of the everyday repertoire of an increasing number of people. An interesting pilot study in one top-achieving senior secondary school in Accra (Ahadzie, Ameka & Essegbey Reference Ahadzie, Ameka and Essegbey2014) found that students who combined English and Ghanaian languages at home performed better in terms of argumentation in a senior high school essay than those who used only English or only Ghanaian languages. The advantages of multilingual language use are evident.
The belief that African languages are unsuited to education, and only knowledge of a European language can lead to higher education or socio-economic success, has produced a situation which hinders implementation of mother tongue-based multilingual education. This is dramatically illustrated in the case of Malawi, a country with around 14 indigenous languages (Mtenje Reference Mtenje2014). The conviction of politicians that English uniquely promotes economic development led to official adoption in 2014 of an English-only policy from first grade, replacing the ‘policy in practice’ of using certain ILs in the first four years.
Implementation of policies favouring ILs is rendered problematic because many languages have few speakers, and speakers of different languages do not live in separate areas. Competition between ‘languages of identity’ for special status presents further challenges. In Eritrea, the politicisation of long-standing religious and regional rivalries between Christians and Muslims has pitted respective elites against each other, and Tigrinya against Arabic. The de facto dominance of Tigrinya is opposed by many Muslims who favour a bilingual official language policy. To avoid further politicisation, the Government has closed down public debate on the issue (Debenna Reference Debenna2014).
Ideological constructions affect the languages used in education and disguise the urgent need for improvement of the quality of education. Key areas are curricula, teacher education, appropriate methodology in multilingual classrooms, and learning materials. Even where reforms promoting learner-centred pedagogies have been introduced into the school curriculum, research has found a discrepancy between the spirit and rhetoric of these curricula and what actually takes place in teacher-training institutions and in schools.
A three-year project (Akyeampong et al. Reference Akyeampong, Pryor, Westbrook and Lussier2011) investigated initial teacher education (ITE) and the practice of recently qualified teachers in early reading and basic maths in six sub-Saharan African countries. They found that ITE curricula were often overloaded, outdated, and misaligned with the actual school curriculum. Westbrook (Reference Westbrook2012) concluded that trainees should be offered opportunities to observe experienced teachers who manage to practise key elements of learner-centred pedagogy despite lack of textbooks, large classes, and gaps in their own pedagogic content knowledge.
A further recommendation concerning teacher training curricula was made by Tom-Lawyer (Reference Tom-Lawyer2014). She found poor implementation of the English Language curriculum in colleges of education in south-western Nigeria, concluding that teachers and teacher educators need to be actively involved in curriculum development, rather than remaining passive implementers.
Bilingual pedagogy is another area which deserves more systematic attention. Instead of policies promoting monolingual classrooms, a growing body of research supports flexible use of the language resources available to teacher and students to assist learning, often called translanguaging (e.g. García & Wei 2014). A mixed-method study of two Ewe-English schools in Ghana, both using the NALAP programme, found generally positive attitudes toward translanguaging among teachers of early grades (Yevudey Reference Yevudey2014). Yevudey considers translanguaging to be a ‘teachable resource’ and advocates its introduction into teacher-training programmes. This remains controversial, however, as many of the Ghanaian teacher-trainers interviewed by Arthur Shoba (Reference Arthur Shoba2013) displayed ambivalent attitudes to NALAP's advocacy of flexible use of languages in the classroom.
Another area of concern is instructional materials. Effective implementation of second language (L2) English-based curricula depends crucially on the availability of textbooks written at an appropriate level for learners. Clegg (Reference Clegg2014) reported on the Bristol University and British Council in Rwanda LAST (Language Supportive Textbooks and Pedagogy) project; it was found that Rwandan textbooks are too difficult for most Grade 4 learners because they are designed for native speakers of English. The Ministry, curriculum writers and publishers supplying the books did not realise that teachers were unable to use them. An innovative feature of this project is the development of new measures of textbook readability embedded in bilingual pedagogy. New criteria aim to capture the inbuilt requirement of simultaneously building content knowledge and competences in English through talk in L1 and L2, as well as reading and writing.
The internet and social media are increasingly used in sub-Saharan Africa. The question arises as to how teachers can optimise the English acquired by pupils from multimedia texts for more effective teaching and learning. Results from a study of linguistically heterogeneous primary schools in which English is used as MoI in one municipality of Accra, Ghana, (Anku, Ansre & Anani Reference Anku, Ansre and Anani2014) indicate that with the support of multimedia texts pupils are better able to understand lessons taught in English.
The range of these studies indicates that intervention in one area alone cannot create a lasting solution to problems of quality in education. The development of context-appropriate bi/multilingual pedagogies with matching training and materials seems to be coming to the fore. However, these depend on indigenous languages being taken seriously as an integral part of regional and national institutions. The studies reviewed indicate some of the ways in which such change could begin to emerge through judicious and balanced government planning, and through a focus on local communication for development.
