<div dir="ltr"><h1>How schools use language as a way to exclude children</h1>
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Sans Souci students protested this week against alleged racism at the school.
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Image: Ashraf Hendricks via GroundUp </div>
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<h2 class="gmail-intro gmail-upper-first">Kenyan author Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o once
described language as “the most important vehicle through which that
[colonial] power fascinated and held the soul prisoner”.</h2>
<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 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 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 href="https://theconversation.com/multilingualism-boosts-learning-and-can-create-new-science-knowledge-too-46292">learning advantages</a> of using <a href="http://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9781137385758">more than one language</a> in the classroom for learning.</p><p><strong>A cycle of blame and bad faith</strong></p><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 href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13613321003726876">assimilationist ethos</a>.</p><div class="gmail-floating-box"><div class="gmail-blurb"><a href="http://www.timeslive.co.za/thetimes/2016/09/08/The-Big-Read-Lets-not-throw-baby-out-with-bath-water"><img src="http://www.timeslive.co.za/incoming/2015/04/04/jonathan-jansen/ALTERNATES/crop_162x162/Jonathan+Jansen"></a><h3><a href="http://www.timeslive.co.za/thetimes/2016/09/08/The-Big-Read-Lets-not-throw-baby-out-with-bath-water">The Big Read: Let's not throw baby out with bath water</a></h3></div></div><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.</p><p>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 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><p><strong>Language ideologies</strong></p><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 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><div class="gmail-floating-box gmail-floating-right"><div class="gmail-blurb"><a href="http://www.timeslive.co.za/sundaytimes/stnews/2016/09/04/Not-just-about-hair---its-values-too"><img src="http://www.timeslive.co.za/incoming/2016/09/03/souci-lock-out.jpg/ALTERNATES/crop_162x162/Souci+lock-out.jpg"></a><h3><a href="http://www.timeslive.co.za/sundaytimes/stnews/2016/09/04/Not-just-about-hair---its-values-too"><span class="gmail-glyph-item">Not just about hair - it's values, too</span></a></h3></div></div><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 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.</p><p>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><p><strong>A long shadow of colonial racism</strong></p><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 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><ul><li><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/carolyn-mckinney-185219">Carolyn McKinney</a>: Associate Professor in Language Education, University of Cape Town</li><li><p><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/xolisa-guzula-185216">Xolisa Guzula</a>: PhD Candidate in Language and Literacy, University of Cape Town</p></li></ul><p><em>This article first appeared in <a href="https://theconversation.com/africa" target="_blank">The Conversation</a></em></p><p><a href="http://www.timeslive.co.za/sundaytimes/stnews/2016/09/08/How-schools-use-language-as-a-way-to-exclude-children">http://www.timeslive.co.za/sundaytimes/stnews/2016/09/08/How-schools-use-language-as-a-way-to-exclude-children</a><br><em></em></p><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 href="https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/" target="_blank">https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/</a><br>listinfo/lgpolicy-list<br>*******************************************</div>
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