[EDLING:256] South Africa: Multilingualism ‘masks deficient teaching of reading’

[Francis M. Hult]

Business Day

Multilingualism ‘masks deficient teaching of reading’   

THE multilingual nature of South African society is used as an easy excuse for 
the fact that many primary school pupils have reading problems but it is 
masking the fact that reading skills are often poorly taught, according to a 
Pretoria academic. 

“In SA, reading problems tend to be masked by language proficiency issues 
 
although English is used as a main language of teaching in South African 
schools, poor literacy results cannot be solely attributed to second-language 
instruction as teachers and learners are struggling with literacy in the 
African languages as well as English,” says Dr Sarah Howie, director of 
Pretoria University’s Centre for Evaluation and Assessment.

Full story:
http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/national.aspx?ID=BD4A501918