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<h1 id="gmail-content_title">Teacher, don't teach me nonsense: How schools use language to exclude children </h1>
<p><time datetime="2016-09-07" class="gmail-content_place_line">07 Sep 2016 12:06</time><a href="http://mgafrica.com/author/carolyn-mckinney-and-xolisa-guzula" class="gmail-content_place_line_author"><span>Carolyn McKinney and Xolisa Guzula</span></a> </p>
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<div class="gmail-alt_content_blurb"><p>Schools
and universities in post-colonial contexts still operate within the
logic of coloniality. This is illustrated by their language policies.</p></div>
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<p>Kenyan author Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o <a target="_blank" href="https://archive.org/stream/DecolonisingTheMind/Decolonising_the_Mind#page/n0/mode/2up">once described</a> language as “the most important vehicle through which that [colonial] power fascinated and held the soul prisoner”.</p><p>He
illustrated this with a disturbing account of receiving corporal
punishment, being fined and wearing a “plate around the neck with
inscriptions such as I AM STUPID or I AM A DONKEY”. His “crime”?
Speaking Gikuyu at his English medium school.</p><p>Today, decisions
about which language resources should count in schooling – as the
language of instruction, a subject, or a legitimate language for
learning – continue to be informed by the relationships between language
and power.
Schools and universities in post-colonial contexts still operate within
the logic of coloniality.</p><p>These realities have been thrown into sharp relief by revelations that some South African schools <a target="_blank" href="http://www.thedailyvox.co.za/malaika-eyoh-pretoria-girls-racism-schools-undervalue-blackness-focus-containing-us-nourishing-us/"> discipline their pupils </a>
for speaking any language but English (or Afrikaans) while on school
grounds. At Cape Town’s Sans Souci High School for Girls, pupils obtain
“losses” (or demerits) for a range of “offences” – like being caught
speaking isiXhosa. For many of Sans Souci’s pupils, this is their home
language.</p><p>Sadly
this problem isn’t unique to South Africa. It’s been seen in other
post-colonial contexts like Nigeria, Kenya and Zimbabwe. Nigerian
novelist Chimamanda Adichie has <a target="_blank" href="http://www.iun.edu/%7Eminaua/interviews/interview_chimamanda_ngozi_adichie.pdf">spoken </a>
about not having the opportunity to learn Igbo proficiently at school.
This, she says, left her with no option but to write exclusively in
English.</p><p>These girls’ stories have foregrounded the crucial issue
of language in processes of assimilation and exclusion. Over the past
ten years there has been a major shift in our understandings of
language, bilingualism and bilingual education which show the <a target="_blank" href="https://theconversation.com/multilingualism-boosts-learning-and-can-create-new-science-knowledge-too-46292">learning advantages </a> of using <a target="_blank" href="http://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9781137385758">more than one language </a> in the classroom for learning.</p><h2>A cycle of blame and bad faith</h2><p>African
children – whose home languages are by and large not English – are
generally not recognised for the experiences, knowledge and linguistic
resources they bring. They’re expected to adapt to pre-existing school
cultures.</p><p>African children in ex-Model C schools are expected to
feel grateful at being given the “opportunity” of a quality education in
a state school system that performs very poorly.</p><p>The apartheid
government designated all “white” state schools Model C in 1992. This
semi-privatised them. Research conducted in such schools since the 1990s
has consistently pointed out these schools’ overwhelmingly <a target="_blank" href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13613321003726876">assimilationist ethos </a>.</p><p>Many
previously white primary and secondary suburban schools offer only
English and Afrikaans as “home language” and “first additional language”
subjects. This continues apartheid’s ideology of bilingualism. Where an
African language is offered, it is given marginal status as “second
additional language”. African languages get little space on the
timetable and few resources.</p><p>Primary school principals have <a target="_blank" href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01434632.2014.908889?journalCode=rmmm20">defended </a>
the fact that they offer only English and Afrikaans by saying their
pupils continue on to high schools that only offer these languages. High
school principals, in turn, reported that they had to offer English and
Afrikaans because their feeder primary schools were not offering
African languages.</p><p>This is a convenient cycle of blame which
signals bad faith. If school leaders and parents were committed to
embracing African languages and the spirit of the multilingual South
African language in education policy, surely they would consult each
other and design collaborative language policies?</p><p>But society’s collective beliefs about whose languages “matter” and should be privileged scupper any meaningful collaboration.</p><h2>Language ideologies</h2><p>The
concept of language ideologies – people’s beliefs about what language
is, as well as what particular uses of language point to or index – are
central in shaping whose language resources count in formal schooling.</p><p>South
African schools’ language policies proceed from an ideology of
“language as a problem” rather than “language as a resource”. As is the
case in other post-colonial societies, this sets linguistic diversity up
as a barrier to rather than an advantage for learning.</p><p>The language ideology and practices that exclusively valorise English can be viewed as <a target="_blank" href="https://www.routledge.com/Language-and-Power-in-Post-Colonial-Schooling-Ideologies-in-Practice/McKinney/p/book/9781138844070">Anglonormativity </a>: the expectation that people will and should be proficient in English, and are deficient (even deviant) if they are not.</p><p>In
ex-Model C schools it’s not just English but a particular variety of
standard South African English which aligns with whiteness that is
privileged.</p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281896926_What_counts_as_language_in_South_African_schooling_Monoglossic_ideologies_and_children%27s_participation">Research has revealed </a>
how early-grade primary school teachers buy into the myth that there’s
one single correct pronunciation for English. They deviate from maths
and literacy lessons to teach children to produce pronunciations and
vowel sounds that align with white South African Englishes. This
practice ignores the content or substance of children’s answers.</p><p>It is also Anglonormativity that renders the typical South African child entering schooling as linguistically deficient.</p><p>A
typical learner in an ordinary South African school will have learned
in their home language until the end of Grade 3. They’re then expected
to switch to exclusively English instruction in all of their subjects
from the beginning of Grade 4. This Anglonormativity is clearly a gross
abuse of the child’s right to quality education.</p><p>All textbook
materials, notes and assessments are given in a language that the child
has been learning as a subject for a few hours per week in the first
three years of schooling.</p><p>The child is expected to learn and be
assessed exclusively in English to the final year of school and beyond.
White middle-class English and Afrikaans speaking learners aren’t
expected to make this sudden transition from learning in their home
language.</p><h2>A long shadow of colonial racism</h2><p>This is not an
argument for mother tongue education instead of English medium
education. It’s an argument for bi- or multilingual education.</p><p>Parents
and children should not be forced to choose either English or an
African language. Instead, children must be equipped with the ability to
learn through and develop all their language resources throughout their
schooling.</p><p>The continuing denigration of African languages and
exclusive valuing of English is evidence of apartheid’s long shadow. It
also points to the <a target="_blank" href="https://monoskop.org/images/a/a5/Fanon_Frantz_Black_Skin_White_Masks_1986.pdf">internalisation of colonial racism</a>
and the continuing power of whiteness. It’s time to realise that access
to English will not be achieved through English-only instruction.</p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/carolyn-mckinney-185219">Carolyn McKinney</a>, Associate Professor in Language Education, <em><a target="_blank" href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-cape-town-691">University of Cape Town</a></em> and <a target="_blank" href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/xolisa-guzula-185216">Xolisa Guzula</a>, PhD Candidate in Language and Literacy, <em><a target="_blank" href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-cape-town-691">University of Cape Town</a></em></p><p>This article was originally published on <a target="_blank" href="http://theconversation.com/">The Conversation</a>. Read the <a target="_blank" href="https://theconversation.com/how-schools-use-language-as-a-way-to-exclude-children-64900">original article</a>.</p><br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature">**************************************<br>N.b.: Listing on the lgpolicy-list is merely intended as a service to its members<br>and implies neither approval, confirmation nor agreement by the owner or sponsor of the list as to the veracity of a message's contents. Members who disagree with a message are encouraged to post a rebuttal, and to write directly to the original sender of any offensive message. A copy of this may be forwarded to this list as well. (H. Schiffman, Moderator)<br><br>For more information about the lgpolicy-list, go to <a target="_blank" href="https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/">https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/</a><br>listinfo/lgpolicy-list<br>*******************************************</div>
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