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<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> </span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">L O W L A N D S - L - 09 January 2008 - Volume 05
</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">=========================================================================</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">From: </span><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="HcCDpe"><span class="EP8xU" style="color: rgb(121, 6, 25);">
Elsie Zinsser</span> <span class="lDACoc"><<a href="mailto:ezinsser@icon.co.za">ezinsser@icon.co.za</a>></span></span><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> </span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Subject: </span><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="HcCDpe">LL-L "Language education" 2008.01.08 (08) [E]<br><br>Hi all,<br><br>Thanks, Gael, for your interesting comments.
<br>I am well informed about the US educational system through my extended family consisting of a sister,<br>brother-in-law (both at Brown), their three teenage kids, and two Afrikaans-speaking nieces; the one<br>involved with post-doctoral work on AIDS.
<br><br>Yes, I was hoping to extract comments/information from Lowlanders about the educational role of public<br>broadcasters in poor, yet super diverse multi-lingual countries, where television, for example, as popular<br>
public broadcasting tool, has been used successfully to teach correct language usage, amongst other things.<br><br>Thirty years ago (before TV), we had the luxury of radio stations for most language groupings, whether Xhosa,
<br>Zulu, Afrikaans, Sotho or English, not unlike NPR in the USA. These played a significant educational role. <br><br>Today, that marvellous educational tool has been replaced with TV, which tends to broadcast mixed-language
<br>kiddie shows, ANC propaganda, a mishmash of US soaps, Oprah, second rate US programmes (not fit to be<br>broadcasted there), and the very occasional good BBC documentary.<br><br>Also, during the school year, pupils (or 'learners', as they are referred to here), can watch extra maths lessons,
<br>and also phone in to get answers to questions, but these are only presented in English. So very often, the presenters<br>battle for five minutes to understand the pupil's question before it can be answered! <br>
<br>The dilemma is that we cannot afford to 'weed out' people who cannot write or speak proper English. It is a second, third or fourth language for the majority of people here. At universities, first-year students are practically illiterate, which forces universities (already strapped for cash) to provide English language bridging courses, besides bridging courses for maths and science. The drop out rate is very large.
<br><br>It is against this background that I was dismayed that a public broadcaster is so myopic as to use the supposedly catchy line Msanzi fo sho, to attract its already illiterate viewers...<br><br>And if that was not enough, today my grandson and I watched an 'English' kiddie story from the US of two boys who have a crush on their Cuban teacher. I had to translate the Spanish conversational bits as well as I could.
<br><br>So the mind boggles.<br><br>Elsie Zinsser<br><br></span>
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