Translanguaging: Not European concept in Africa, but a decolonizing agent

This is the first in a series of dialogues I want to engage on why decolonization or thinking outside of the colonial invasion is a worthy cause for language and literacy education. We live in an era where literacy rates, levels, skills, practices are considered low- a very basic form of human existence. As a result, many African children are surviving through a harsh educational pathway, believing that they are stupid, unintelligent and not worthy. The ultimate result is not only being excluded from opportunity mobility in the capitalist world [eat or be eaten], they are removed gradually from a sense of who they truly are; they pose and live a false life until they hate themselves. Fathers are economically emasculated and there are no models to raise the future generation of boys and girls. Schools wane them down through the myths that one needs only one language to learn and that their own languages are useless! Self hatred is guaranteed. The colonizer can relax at a beach, knowing that the cursing has happened and will continue until 'minds are decolonized' and 'consciousness' kicks in their souls so they unmask the shades of falsehood. 

As for me, it was accidental that I became acutely aware of the relationship between language, literacy and ways of knowing that are indigenous to speakers of African languages. Growing up in a remote rural village under the care of a mother who was not able to make sense of the Roman Alphabets and what they represented, I struggled to come to terms with the literacy programmes used in schools. I went through learning programmes where teachers used to drill us into singing letters, memorizing and regurgitating without real content of what these stood for and what reference they had for our lived experiences. Many friend-children struggled to connect dots of knowledge at school and failed dismally at every examinations opportunity. While the one language  schooling system [yes it is one language posing falsely as 11) pushed many learners out, I had the resilience to stay on and take on the literacy journey while asking myself the question: Why is there so much gap between school and our lived community experience? But even Plato said those who master the curriculum master themselves- why is this not so obvious in the so-called post-colonial world?

I decided to study languages not only to understand how languages do not only represent ideas, but also how they embody ways of knowing. On this account, I questioned learning in a foreign language before one had at least 6 years on induction in familiar languages and considered alternatives. My scholarship looked at the possibility of valorizing the African cultural competence where there is a fluid intersection of languages as a normal linguistic behavior, a way of being and making sense of the world. When I started work on translanguaging as an alternative pedagogy for multilingual learners, I was responding to the well- researched, but obvious  fact that learners do not understand what teachers are saying in most African classrooms. This is the one and the real challenge for African education systems. Stop talking about anything else fancy and deal with this foundational problem. In this way I found translanguaging, defined as a pedagogical strategy where there is complex alternation of languages of input and output in the process of meaning making close to my the type of communication I experienced in my village, which is situated at the border of two provinces in South Africa, Limpopo and Mpumalanga. In other words, my journey of questioning monolingual (aka colonial) bias  found resonance with my own lived experiences. I am connected to the subject and thus my research makes sense first and foremost to me. It took a long journey of being lost and found until I understood that "charity begins at home", but also learning how to move away from being a village chief to a global education disruptor, taking leadership roles and making world education systems and lives of people better!

 website: www.leketimakalela.co.za

Tiwitter: @leketimakalela

 

Matric exams underway and congratulations

That time for myths and fears has started as the grade 12 started with their exams yesterday. I was asked to comment on the questions around grade 12 examinations by a media representative and I wanted to share my views as follows:

Question 1

What advice can be given to those sitting for their first NSC examination?

Answer: Because there is a definite process of standardization and moderation of the papers for quality assurance, my advice in the 11th hour would be to study model papers in the past 3 years. Here one sees different options in which content knowledge can be assessed. Attempts at answering these would give a good feel for the real exam, which prepares one mentally and emotionally.

Question 2:

How can learners sitting for their language examination prepare for them?

Answer: There are key areas for language papers that are examinable, depending on whether it is paper 1, 2 or 3. Like maths, science and other content subjects, language examination needs practice and rehearsal. For example, summary, short and long transactional texts, and grammar items like direct/indirect speech are obviously going to be part of the exam. For evaluative questions, which are usually a challenge for the learners, it is important to note that a "yes" or "no" answer is insufficient and they need to know that there is no wrong or right answer here. Examiners/markers are interested in the reason/s of the "yes" or "no" and they judge reasoning rather than a correct answer. For comprehension texts, they should follow the old advice to read questions first so their reading of the text is intentional. It is advisable for the learners to have a good handle of these and other parts through practice, practice and practice. Examples of old papers and memoranda are all available on the DBE website.

Question 3

In comparison to last years examination, do you think this years examination will be easier or difficult?

Answer: We have seen an increase in the level of difficulty in the past three years as the CAPS started maturing. This is however not matched by improvements in the quality of teaching. Most learners are caught in this tension as teacher education institutions and a generation of retiring teachers have equally not been helpful in decoding the CAPS as they have serially proven underprepared. Yet the public eyes are narrowly focusing on the easiness/difficulty of the papers. It is delicate matter, not simple in black and white.

Standardization of papers by Umalusi ensures that cohorts of learners are not unfairly advantaged or disadvantaged by reasons other than their own capabilities. Although the quality of papers are gradually improved, the level of change cannot be so drastic to lower or raise a pass significantly. The public often decries marks going down or up ( especially if the results at face value show an upward trend) without understanding how standardization works (e.g., why a historical average is important to assure steady growth/decline- something normal with general population growth dynamics). In short, the exams will not be either difficult or easy as this will be unfair to either the previous or current cohort. Any suggestion to either way should be dismissed as sensational.

Question 4:

Efforts made by the department and schools, do you think the provincial rates will be higher than last year?

Catch up programmes at provincial levels are commendable. But recall that these are geared mainly at lower performing schools and in particular targeting the "progressed" learners. The idea is to mitigate overall pass rates, which stand to be low due to progressed learners who usually come to grade 12 underprepared. If anything, we can learn from the impact of these programmes in 2016. Because the overall number of progressed learners were slightly above 60000, the efforts did not have a significant impact on the overall national performance. The number will most certainly rise to about 90000 this year, but this will still be insignificant relative to approximately 700000 learners in total. At a very micro level, yes to see more learners passing due these efforts is encouraging and we are likely to see a repeat of urban provinces like Gauteng doing better than rural provinces where these efforts are not as effective. For example, Gauteng, in a bid to reclaim its position as the number 1 province, has introduced an unfair and discriminatory system called "targeting the talented" to boost results while leaving the weaker even weaker. They noticed that focusing on low performers was not in the end showing statistical change in the overall provincial results. Rural provinces, in the other hand, do not have this leverage as they have more underperforming schools. It seems in my view an uncoordinated intervention that is based on competition instead of a cohesive system managed to stem out deeply unequal outcomes.

Question 5:

What could be the reasons for the high number of drop outs, learners not making it to sit for their NSC exam?

 

Answer: A large number of drop outs occur in grade 10, counting up to 50%. There are as many reasons as these learners including transitional and structural factors I prefer to call "push outs". Beyond grade 10, drop out/push out rate is so negligible to cause any alarms. I am not sure why this is raising concerns. The assumption of this statement is categorically incorrect as there is no mark for one to obtain to qualify to sit for the exams. Even the SBA's would not disqualify any learner.

Congratulations to the 2017 cohort!

Professor Leketi Makalela

Founding Director: Hub for Multilingual Education and Literacies

Twitter: @LeketiMakalela

www.leketimakalela.co.za

Latest Book: Shifting Lenses: Multilanguaging, Decolonization and Education in the Global South

De-education through syllabic reading: The horrors of literacy teaching in African languages

This article is adapted from Balang Foundation (www.balangfoundation.org) during the 2017 Africa Day (May 22)

Teaching literacy is incomplete without full involvement of the early readers’ parents, caregivers and siblings. To change the reading literacy direction of the country and celebrate Africa Day, Balang Foundation held an arms length session with about 50 parents in Attridgeville on 25 May 2017. How do we make literacy African? This was the question.

A delegation of the Foundation sent four important messages for improving reading in the homes. First, parents understood how reading words at syllable levels can be a dangerous precedence for reading development in future. While these are good building blocks for words in English, syllables are not particularly important for meaning making in African languages.  The problem is that most of the teaching in African languages version the logic of syllables from English and as a result create the so called ‘ba-be-bi-bo-bu’ methodology where children put these sounds to memory when they are not useful at a later stage. This method also treats African languages as ‘miniature English languages’ rather than independent languages in their own rights. To respect African languages and their internal structure, syllabic reading should be avoided at all costs as it breeds bad reading habits that hamper comprehension at a later stage. Negative reading behaviours were identified as: head movement, regression, finger pointing and verbalization. Parents got the message straight that when syllables are used as units of reading, the parents need to help the child to close these into a full meaningful word. For example: I-n-vu-la should be closed as ‘invula’ once. 

The next issue that impedes comprehension is read aloud. While this skill is practiced in many schools nationally, we find that an over-emphasis at the expense of silent reading robs the readers of the opportunity to read for meaning and enjoyment. At worse, many readers at grade 6 are conditioned to believe that this is the only way to approach a text. And they ‘bark’ at texts.  It is very important to let children have opportunities for silent reading. Again this skill is based on the English logic of phonological awareness. While this is necessary for teaching English, African languages teaching does not benefit a lot from repetition of sounds and rhymes because they rely on tone. They are however very rich in their word conjugations (Morphology), which is sadly neglected in the education system. “Literacy in African languages is incomplete without a focus on morphological awareness. Phonological awareness emphasis in the curriculum is an indication of the symptoms of versioning”, asserted Leketi Makalela. Understood from this candid conversation with parents, there is no Africa day without African literacy. While the concepts are complex, they were presented in an easy to follow steps, using isiZulu, Sepedi and English.

Finally, when it comes to habits formation, it was stressed that parents should be involved in the reading process for the children. Parents should model reading to the extent that a reading time should be given a ‘sacred’ space without competition with television. Parents cannot watch television programmes while their kids are reading in another room. Moreover, in the process of reading for (scaffolded reading) and reading with (shared reading), parents and caregivers need to spend at least 15 minutes daily with children on reading. This is more effective if it is happening just before bedtime.

Prognostication and literacy education: cave humans in the 21st C

The power of education lies is its grand ability to skill the mind to project and reflect experiences.  Outside of these twin-goals for education, it is apparent that the classrooms can only serve to re-create the dark ages 'caves' suitable to arrest human development. One's ability to look into the past in order to see the future- prognostication- is assumed to be a trait that comes naturally to all human beings, not a specialized skill reserved for a few. Literacy education is best suited to harnesses this skill and to bring it to live! We increasingly find that bad education based on oppressive-one-language norm, on the other hand, teaches multilingual people to stay in 'the here and the now' mental state--a trait well-known among children and other animal species.This assisted oblivion  also happens when we ask learners/students to regurgitate information and memorize answers in ONE  language  (information is stored in the short term memory space).  

There is no doubt in my view that prognostication is a strong feature among human beings. In Ghana, for example, there is a saying called "Sankofa", meaning you go back and fetch! Not only are we able to predict what is coming, we are also able to 'create' the future provided we have a glimpse of what it might look like. That is why there is a conventional wisdom that history is a good teacher. Yet, it only teaches some people as others  are not able to learn from it. Here's a question and answer session:

Q:  Is it possible to develop highest levels of foresight and hindsight if a language is taken away from you in schools?

A: Impossible. Language is the enabler of deeper levels of thinking. It enables our infinite intelligence  to be at work.

Q: So what happens to students/learners who don't understand the language the teacher uses? 

A: I and my Norwegian language education scholar believe that this is  a 'stupification' exercise for the children. The real education challenge facing Sub-Saharan Africa (more than any another region in the world) is that children do not understand what teachers are saying. Neither do most teachers understand deeply what they say to the learners.

Q: So there won't be reflection in this situation?

A:You are right. Education here creates an assisted oblivion.

Q: What about their foresight?

A: Impossible in the same way that  prognostication is?

Q: Are these children then made to be like animals? 
A:  I leave this to your imagination.
Q:  But are  you saying that students  taught for 12 years in schools are made to be like cave men and women trapped in the moment?

A: Language damage is more than that of armed  forces. I leave that question for you to answer.

An education that fails to ignite this power of imagination only creates cave men and women as the case was in the dark ages. The good news is that we can work to change the situation. 

As a student of life, it would serve one better  to sit back at the end of the day and visualize how the day has been. Taking some time once a week to flash back offers unmatched advantages on self engagement, knowing oneself, and reflecting on one's growth path. All great people in the world do this and then develop better insights on what is next and take charge of the next. Simply put, they are always intentional about tomorrow, next week, next month, and next year--some even go to the next 20 years. When one flashes back for the same amount of  the foresight time, the magic sparks! When you habitually do this (even when you don't feel like it), you become unstoppable and stay on your way to earning a life of prognostication! Not moment paralysis and procrastination. Every parent should know that the language, literacy and prognostication are related and interdependent. And see the argument for literacy as both a cognitive trait and social practice beyond the ink and paper.

Related links: 
www.leketimakalela.co.za

Twitter: @leketimakalela

Languages and literacies in the 21st Century

Languages and literacies in the 21st Century

23 January 2017 - Deborah Minors

Professor Leketi Makalela chairs a research programme on complex multilingual encounters, a growing field attracting increasing numbers of PhD candidates.

Makalela is the Head of the Division of Languages, Literacies and Literatures in the Wits School of Education. His research explores the interface between languages and literacies in the 21st Century. He is intrigued by the prospect of alternating languages of input and output to enhance identity construction and epistemic access for multilingual students.

His research challenges the validity of boundaries between languages and literacies and it ‘disrupts’ monolingual bias in classroom interactions and language policies. His research highlights the fact that monolingual bias is the root cause of high failure rates among multilingual learners and that it reproduces social inequalities.

In light of these theoretical limitations, he has developed a multilingual literacies framework that is based on the African value system of interdependence – ubuntu – to define complex multilingual encounters.

Using ubuntu ‘translanguaging’ to explain cultural competence that is embedded in the logic of incompletion (i.e., one language is incomplete without the other) and interdependence, Makalela argues that all global multilingual encounters are characterised by the constant disruption of language and literacy boundaries and the simultaneous recreation of new discursive ones.

This research shifts epistemological lenses from the North to the South and proposes practical methodologies that are anchored in the cultural competence of multilingual speakers for increased access to knowledge, ways of knowing, and identity formation/affirmation.

“I believe this is the most effective way to bring about transformed school practices in South Africa and other comparable contexts worldwide,” he says.

CALL FOR PAPERS: The Hub for Multilingual Education and Literacies in the Wits School of Education invites papers for the 4th International Conference on Language and Literacy Education. Email your 250-word abstract to matlakala.moagi@wits.ac.za by 31 March 2017.

Read more about research at Wits in Wits Research Matters

- See more at: http://www.wits.ac.za/news/latest-news/research-news/2017/2017-01/languages-and-literacies-in-the-21st-century-.html#sthash.nxDMYZjy.yqnvKq1o.dpuf

Education in the new world order: Multilanguaging frontiers- I

I gave a public lecture at the University of Seychelles on the topic that preoccupies me as I ask the world: why do we use monolingual (aka. colonial) lens if we need to maximize human potential to know and to be. Several realities ring true and they are concerning:

1) Majority of the primary school readers are at least 3-4 years below their expected proficiency levels
2) There is a vast Matthew effect in reading development: the poor are getting poorer and it seems like a journey of no return.

Our new world order is that of discontinuous continuities where there is a constant disruption of orderliness and simultaneous recreation of new ones. Many more children learn to speak and succeed in more than one language and the vast majority would have proficiency in at least 3 by the time they are 6 years old (a threshold age for language acquisition). Our contemporary children do not have 'mother tongue'; they have a repertoire that contains many languages that 'leak into each other'. The boundaries cannot hold! Besides, these have always been artificial in many complex multilingual spaces such as South Africa. One needs to stress that these new generation of speakers make sense of the world in which they live and of who they are. There is no mental or identity confusion as the old stories imposed on natural human gift: multilingualism. In terms of use, I have termed this versatile way of using at least three languages in the same speech context  as multilanguaging. More articles are forthcoming to explain this phenomenon.

The questions are: Why do we still stick to monolingual norms when the majority of the world populations are multilinguaging? Why are textbooks written in one language when readers can speak more than the language of writing?  However way one looks at it, we seem not to tap into the full potential for human capacity. Even more, we frustrate the speakers and question the nature of their being. The real problem is our thinking that language is the tail end of our teaching instead of a means to learning. Once language teacher forego their focus on what languages look like to what speakers do with their languages, we will have reached a milestone in this journey for multilingual education and literacies---an age of multilanguaging.

Related sites:
 @leketimakalela
www.leketi.makalela.co.za

Readers of the Word and Leaders of the World: 5 years of Balang Foundation

               “How can we not lead when we read? We’ve been with Balang for 5 years”

There are many weekends in one calendar year, but the 17-19 July was a very special one to Balang Foundation and its bursars who converged at Bolivia Lodge, Polokwane in Limpopo Province to celebrate 5 years of success and to receive further induction as readers of the word and leaders of the world.  Beyond the fact that Balang Foundation was ablaze with rich stories of successful mentoring of young minds, the weekend was also a special one as it coincided with the celebration of the Mandela Day. Remembering the Mandela injunction that education should be the strongest weapon in the struggle for liberation, Balang stressed the importance of education despite that fact that the post Apartheid phase has seen a snail's progress and inevitably left so many children in weak positions to develop literacy and conquer their lives. 

The idea of writing as thinking was introduced to the learners who had to think deeply about their experiences in life. Throughout this journaling exercises- asked used as ‘catch up’ sessions, the kids became emotional as they were ‘pushed’ to confront themselves and to reflect on who they are- a tough exercise often avoided by many. The exercise provided them with a unique opportunity to use writing as a tool for emotional release. After an hour of writing, the learners were given a chance to share their writings to the group (writing for an audience) after  listening to model stories from the facilitators (modelling writing). 

One of the highlights of the weekend was the book receiving ceremony where a total of 100 books (new and used) were distributed to the grateful bursars. The idea was to cultivate a reading culture and to increase their power of leading through reading extensively. It was expected that the learners would pick up writing styles from established authors and that they would read and write on a daily basis. As in the past, the bursars were given lots of opportunities to write, in at least two languages of their choice, reflective pieces on how Balang changed their lives over the past 5 years. Here, translingual development is encouraged. 

 Feedback from some of the bursars (some translations):

“I don’t know where I would have been without Balang.”

“I feel confident and I have learned to be resilient.”

“Balang Foundation taught me how to manage my day.”

“It taught me how to read my books without struggle and to read for 15 minutes everyday.”

“That there is no holiday in reading; for me reading is to the mind what food is to the stomach.” (translated)

The theme of the interdependence between the word and the world was made explicit through an encouragement by Professor Leketi Makalela. In particular, it was made clear that to conquer the world, and to make sense of it and of oneself, one needs to be hungry for words, which ultimately bring the reader closer to the world. It is in the power of multilingual words that readers are able to transform the world. 

The workshop also made a special effort to ensure that the learners understood exactly who they are. Because it is difficult for many people to define themselves, a series of pictures were distributed to the learners to scaffold the naming of self. At the end of the workshop, the learners received their second bursary tranches to buy  school uniform or take school-based excursion trips. Overall, this was a stimulating workshop that pulled together the wisdom of 5 years of the Foundation Foundation and confirmed its future mission to invest in young readers and the power of words to transform lives and conquer the world. In this connection, Balang Foundation prides itself for turning reluctant readers into leaders through reading!

Leketi Makalela

September 2015