8.1 Main findings
8.2 Standard and non-standard Nyanja in Zambia
8.3 Accounting for local language differences
8.4 Implications of findings for learning in English across the curriculum
8.5 Possibilities for improvement in education and reading
8.6 Conclusion
From the observations, tests and individual reading investigations carried out in this research, the following main points emerge:
· there is little difference in English reading proficiency between Malawian and Zambian pupils, although the latter have officially had 4 years of English medium teaching.· there are considerable urban/rural differences in English reading proficiency in both countries, with the urban areas outperforming the rural areas
· in both Malawi and Zambia, many pupils do not appear to see reading in English as a "meaning making" process, possibly because their level of English is too low. They are highly text and word bound, and do not seem to apply inferencing strategies to textual relations or word meanings when reading English
· Malawian pupils read much better in Chichewa than Zambian pupils read in Nyanja
· in Malawi the Chichewa results do not discriminate against rural pupils and girls, unlike the English results
· although the individual investigations were carried out on only small numbers of pupils, there is a tendency for higher proficiency in English reading to be associated with home backgrounds where family members have relatively high status jobs
· there appears to be a positive relationship between reading proficiency in English, and school attendance
· the teaching of reading in English is in general not effective in that, for both Zambia and Malawi, the great majority of pupils almost certainly do not read English well enough to be able to use this skill to learn in other subjects (see 8.4 below)
These results need to be discussed with caution, since it not possible to control all the variables in each country. For example, the Malawi pupil: teacher ratio of 78.1 to 1 (MoE(M), 1991: 34), is far higher than Zambia's of 43.5 to 1 (MoE(Z), 1991: 161). On the other hand, Malawi testees are estimated to have had about one year more at school than their Zambian counterparts partly because of their higher incidence of repetition of school years, and partly because of the fact that the testing point of May/June was at different stages in the two countries' school year. While such factors may account for the direction of the English results in favour of Malawian pupils, they could by no means account for the large differences in local language reading performance, where Malawian pupils are clearly superior.
The Malawian superiority in local language reading tests is supported by the reading investigation when all Malawian pupils were judged to have read the text with understanding, while less than a third of Zambian pupils were able or willing to read the text. There appear to be two reasons for the difference between the two groups: the first is to do with the fact that the "ordinary" Nyanja of the Zambian pupils differs from the Nyanja used in the tests; the second, and in my view the more substantial reason, is the lack of attention to local languages in Zambia.
The variety of Nyanja in which many Zambian children are competent is "town Nyanja" (see Kashoki, 1990: 137; Serpell, 1978: 147), a non-standard variety characterised by borrowings from English as well as other Zambian languages. The "standard Nyanja" of the Zambian language course books is a different variety, said to be based on Malawian Chichewa which is generally regarded as a "purer" or, in the African metaphor, "deeper", form. Thus many Zambian children are more familiar with the "town Nyanja" term mabrikisi (from the English "bricks", but with Nyanja ma- as a plural marker, and Nyanja phonology) rather than the standard ncherwa. A telling anecdote is that while one Zambian boy only knew mabrikisi, and not ncherwa, a Malawian girl not only understood ncherwa, but was able to cope with different forms of the word (see 7.5). There are a number of references by the Zambian pupils to this problem of language variety, e.g.:
ZDB12
I: By the way, why do think this Nyanja is difficult for you? Is it different from the one you speak?
P: Yes.
I: How is this Nyanja here? [indicating text]
P: This is very deep.
I: But if you studied hard, you could understand it, couldn't you?
P: Yes.
Pupils are well aware of the differences between "town Nyanja" and "standard Nyanja" and the fact that the former is used in speaking and the latter in writing, as the following extracts indicate:
ZEG21
P: I don't know Nyanja so well. The way we read it is different from the way we speak.
I: So, if the Nyanja that you speak is what you were given to read, would you like it?
P: Yes.ZDB19
I: Do you like Nyanja?
P: Writing Nyanja?
I: Yes.
P: No.
I: What about speaking?
P: Yes, we like it a lot.
I: Why do you like speaking Nyanja, but not writing?
P: Because when we are told to write, we are given different things, things that are spoken by other people, and not the Nyanja we speak.
The fact that these children are faced with an unfamiliar variety of their own language when reading has certainly caused them difficulties, and may possibly have alienated some of them. However, if standard school Nyanja had been taught consistently from year one, and children had achieved literacy in it, then not only would it be familiar to pupils by the time they reached year 5, but such teaching could contribute to disseminating the standard form. The prevailing attitude (although not necessarily one to be uncritically accepted) in Zambia is that "town Nyanja" is not appropriate for formal educational purposes. Of course, Nyanja is not the only language in Zambia, or elsewhere, with standard and non- standard varieties. Indeed, none of Zambia's seven official languages is standardized with respect to dialectal variation according to Kashoki (1990: 75). Lack of standardization does not pose insurmountable problems, and is a matter best left to informed local negotiation.
The reason for Malawian pupils' superiority is almost certainly that Chichewa is used as the language of instruction for the first four years. This means that Malawian pupils are accustomed to seeing Chichewa in written form. Zambian pupils on the other hand, rarely see their local language in written form.
Not only are Zambian languages (i.e. one of the "official" seven) not used as media of instruction, they are also neglected even as subjects in primary school teaching, although provision is officially made for teaching them for 4 thirty minute periods per week. The reason for this neglect is identified in Focus on Learning (1992: 45): Teachers teach what is examined. (...) Curriculum areas that are not examined are not likely to be taught or learned. (...) The present practice is to attach theoretical importance to Zambian Languages and to practical subjects. But the examination results in these areas do not contribute in any way to the overall mark for secondary selection. This neglect of Zambian languages is also born out by what the pupils say in interviews:
ZAG13:
I: Don't you do Nyanja?
P: We sometimes do Nyanja, but it was a long time ago. We did it from time to time unless English, we learn English every day. (sic)ZFB09:
I: Why didn't you want to read Nyanja?
P: We don't know it.
I: But don't you learn Nyanja?
P: We learn it sometimes, once in a while.ZEG21:
I: Was (the Nyanja passage) difficult for you?
P: It was.
I: Why?
P: Because we don't know the words.
PF: We don't learn Nyanja. We used to do it in grade 4.
I: OK, but you know how to speak Nyanja?
P: Yes.
I: So why is it difficult for you to read?
PF: I used to like Nyanja when our teacher was a woman - Mrs. [..] and Mrs. [...]. They used to teach us Nyanja a lot.
I: What about the man you have now?
P: He doesn't teach us Nyanja.
I: So because you've stopped doing Nyanja, you've come to dislike it?
P: No, we've just forgotten it.
Experimental work (e.g. Segalowitz et al, 1991: 22) suggests that consistent repetition improves speed of automatic recognition in reading; clearly Malawian pupils see their language in written form more frequently and therefore recognise it more readily. However, if consistent repetition over a period of time explains the superiority of the Malawian pupils in reading the local language, then why do Zambian children - with 4 years extra of English as a medium of instruction - not demonstrate higher proficiency in this language than their Malawian counterparts? A probable answer lies in the dominant pedagogic practice in both countries: as the reports on lessons and the lesson transcripts show, teachers rely very heavily in the teaching of reading on the 'look and say' (whole word and whole sentence) approach, with no attention to the presentation or checking of meaning.
The result of this is a 'reading-like' activity, rather than "real" reading. The same techniques are deployed in the content subjects, where pupils are again required to spend a great deal of time repeating aloud what they do not understand.
Automatization of reading skill does not result from repetition alone. Segalowitz et al claim that 'the issue will be how consistently and frequently a given meaning representation is associated with its graphemic representation by the language user' (1991: 22, my italics). Thus, the teaching of reading in English fails, because pupils do not understand what they are repeating, while the teaching of reading in Chichewa in Malawi succeeds, for although it follows the repetitive "look and say" method, the crucial difference is that the children already know the meaning of what they are "looking at and saying".
In conjunction with this, the syllabic method of teaching initial reading (see Appendix A) in Malawi seems to contribute to a principled approach to the early stages of word identification in Chichewa, and also to be a method that all teachers understand and feel confident with. It is probably safe to say that the language and methodology play a positive role in the Malawian success in teaching reading in the local language, a success achieved despite the almost complete absence of books and classes with an average of around 100 pupils, many of which are taught in the open.
The moral of the Malawian achievement would appear to be that if resources are scarce, there is a greater likelihood of success in attempting to teach pupils a known local language, rather than an unknown one. This achievement in the face of severe material difficulties may have lessons for Zambia or other countries where local languages are neglected and English poorly learned. While there may be compelling logistic reasons for not attempting to teach reading in all the 20 or so Zambian languages identified by Kashoki (1990: 109), the teaching of reading in the seven officially recognised languages would be a practical possibility. At the moment large numbers of Zambian pupils have very weak or zero reading competence in two languages. The example of Malawi suggests most could at least achieve some reading competence in the local language.
Teaching people to read in a language, however, is of limited value unless there is something to read in that language. In Malawi there is reading matter in Chichewa in the form of newspaper sections, public signs, religious notices and books as well as private texts. In Zambia there appears to be relatively little public text to read in local languages. However, if the schools produced more readers in local languages, then this might stimulate the production of public and private texts.
It is difficult to interpret with precision the English test results in terms of the pupils' comprehension of other school texts. However, bearing in mind that in the 1992 research the three 20 item subtests are aimed at three different years (3, 4 and 6), we may make a cautious negative claim that a score of 7 or less out of 20 items in a subtest would indicate inadequate reading comprehension on that subtest. The percentages of pupils scoring 7 or less out of 20 on their subtest were as follows:
Table 56: Percentage of Testees at each year scoring 7 or less on Word Find test for each subtest
|
|
Year 3 |
Year 4 |
Year 6 |
|
Malawi |
65% |
89% |
78% |
|
Zambia |
89% |
88% |
74% |
If these schools are representative, then these figures suggest that some 89% of year 3 Zambian pupils cannot adequately comprehend the English texts judged to be at their level, some 88% of year 4 cannot do so, and some 74% of year 5. If they cannot comprehend their English course books it is likely that they cannot understand their content subject course books, for not only is there a gap between what pupils know, and what is in their English course books, there is also a language gap between the English course books and the content subject course books. Similar problems are reported from South African primary schools (McDonald, 1990, cited in Chick, 1992: 33) where the amount of English in the curriculum up to and including year 2 is inadequate for the sudden transition to English medium at year 3.
Given this low general level of English reading proficiency on tests tied to their English course books, it is difficult to see how the majority of pupils in Zambia and Malawi could learn other subjects successfully through reading in English. This is supported by a Zambian Ministry of Education report (Focus on Learning, 1993: para 5.4) which claims that Too early an emphasis on learning through English means that the majority of children form hazy and indistinct concepts in language, mathematics, science and social studies. A number of studies in Zambia have confirmed that children's subsequent learning has been impaired by this policy. Previous research in Zambia has come up with similar conclusions. Chikalanga (1990: 69) reporting a 1973 study in Kitwe Teachers' College, which tested 583 grade 5 children, concluded that there is a large group of very poor readers in most classes and they are unlikely to be able to cope with the English course of the New Zambia Primary Course nor be able to do much of the work in other subjects (my underlining).
Apart from weaknesses in the English of pupils, classroom observation and discussions suggest there are also weaknesses in the English of some teachers. This weakness probably contributes to the excessively text-bound nature of the English reading lessons, and of content lessons. Typically the latter are taught in much the same way as an English reading lesson - the text is read, then questions are asked which simply require the pupil to repeat sentences from the text. Such "safe" language does not serve the cause of conceptual clarification. I have observed lessons in Malawi dealing with the human heart and the structure of flowers, where "auricles" "ventricles" "stamens" and "pistils" were read and copied, but where there was no reference to "real life" or discussion of the issues: it is certain most pupils did not have a clear concept of what these words referred to. For the majority of children in both countries the test results, and classroom observations, suggest there is a clear risk that the policy of using English as a vehicular language may contribute to stunting, rather than promoting, academic and cognitive growth.
The argument that instead of learning English for content subjects, pupils could learn English through content subjects, does not in my view offer the prospect of an immediate and general improvement. Learning English through content has theoretical appeal, but would require more careful integration of the content courses with the English courses than seems to be the case currently. Moreover, it would also require more sensitive presentation by teachers of language and concepts relating to content, than would appear to be possible in current circumstances. It may succeed in particular individual instances, but is unlikely to be effective on a national scale.
8.5.1 Improving English reading
8.5.2 Rethinking the role of English?
Although present levels of English reading in Malawi and both English and Zambian language reading in Zambia are far from satisfactory, this is not to be blamed entirely on official policies or inappropriate pedagogy, but also on the context in which education is taking place: many schools are dilapidated, there is a shortage of books, and teachers have low morale. The common cause of these problems is the weak economy, which also causes much pupil absence through ill-health or work. If we accept that there will be no immediate economic upturn in these countries, we must also accept that any suggestions for improvements within existing parameters will tend to be limited in their effects.
Any suggestions for improvements should ideally be delivered by a teaching force whose morale is sufficiently high for them to embark on innovative approaches with commitment, whose language competence is adequate, and who have some basic insights into the processes of reading and second language learning. There is a clear danger that simply "unloading" materials and methods from the UK, or anywhere else, onto a teaching force that has neither the willingness nor the pedagogic capacity to implement them will fail. This is particularly important in view of the fact that some British educationists (e.g. Harwood, 1995), are themselves now re-evaluating the efficacy of some of the central practices of UK state primary education, such as group work. Before decisions on new approaches are made in Malawi or Zambia, careful analysis of the teacher resource potential is needed, as well as analysis of the effects on pupils' achievement, through robustly evaluated trialling.
At the moment many teachers in countries such as Zambia and Malawi need to be made more familiar with issues in reading in a second language. If this is to take place, even to a limited extent, then it is important for the countries to possess a cadre of reading specialists to provide pre-service and in-service training. Ideally these specialists should be familiar not only with the conventional range of reading topics in first and second language (methods of initial reading, techniques in intensive reading, etc.) but also and crucially, have first hand familiarity with teaching reading in the local schools, and an understanding of the application of reading theory to local conditions.
Education ministries and the schools also need to be aware of the roles of English and local languages in learning across the curriculum, particularly as concerns the language differences between English course books and content course books in English. The linguistic demands of transitions that occur across years when the medium of instruction changes (as in Malawi) needs particular attention.
As far as classroom approaches are concerned, countries which use English (or any other "major") language as a second language medium of instruction within their primary education system, need to be aware that if pupils are to learn efficiently from reading in English, then specific attention should be given to a comprehensive English reading programme (not simply an English language programme) integrated into an English language and skills development syllabus. The following components would be widely agreed to contribute to an effective programme of reading in English as a second language:
(i) an English language component: this is usually provided by the course book and should attend to meanings and not only to form and pronunciation.(ii) learning how to read and write in English: again this is usually provided by the course book, and will consist either of an initial reading programme in English for those who have not been taught to read in a local language or of a beginning English reading programme for those who have been taught to read in a local language.
(iii) intensive reading for practising reading comprehension and improving language proficiency, especially as regards vocabulary expansion: this too is usually provided by the course book in the form of short passages. Typically the language will be slightly above the level of the pupils, and the gap will "bridged" by the teacher.
(iv) listening to stories read aloud by the teacher. The purpose of this is to introduce the notion of deriving pleasure from books. The language would normally be at or slightly below the level of the pupils.
(v) group reading where classes of children read the same books at the same time under the teacher's guidance. The purpose of this is to help children develop strategies for individual reading.
(vi) a self-access supplementary reading programme, where pupils choose their own books and are in charge of their own reading. The purpose of this is to enhance existing reading capacity and encourage interest in reading; the language of most books should be slightly below the level of most pupils, so that they may be able to read the books independently.
Currently many countries focus exclusively on the first three components, often justifying this by claiming that syllabus demands do not allow any other activities. However, in terms of generating a positive attitude towards reading, there are advantages in a planned introduction of the last three components, and particularly the last, for once pupils have learned "how to read" they can only develop the skill by reading. Good readers read a lot, and pupils therefore need to be given the opportunity to read. Careful integration and staging of all the components is important, and there is clearly a significant role for writing, which this monograph has been unable to give space to.
Given the weak results of the current dominance of English in primary education in Malawi and Zambia, it is certainly worth considering the advantages of teaching initial literacy in the child's mother tongue, or at least a local language known to the child. (This is, after all, what most countries in the world do, unless there are compelling reasons to the contrary.)
Among the reasons for promoting initial literacy in a local language are:
· if the example of Malawi is representative, local language literacy seems to be more successfully taught than English literacy.· local language literacy may provide support for subsequent English literacy: at the very least, it would have the logical advantage of children moving from the known (their language) to the unknown (reading), rather than confronting two unknowns (the English language and reading) simultaneously.
· local language literacy is much more in harmony with the current "child-centred" policy in education
Furthermore, as this research shows for these two countries, it is not the case that competence in one language is gained at the expense of competence in another. If that were so, the Zambian children should have scored much more highly than their Malawian counterparts in English. There are also reasons of language status and prestige, which we will not go into at this point, but which are nonetheless of importance.
A more radical suggestion than simply encouraging initial literacy in a local language, would be for the local language to be used as the sole medium of instruction throughout primary schooling, with English taught, but only as a subject, from year 3 onwards. This would allow literacy skills to be established in the local language, and would also help more children to understand what is going on in the classroom. It would also acknowledge officially, what is accepted in private, namely that a great deal of the medium of instruction is in fact the local language - as one primary pupil in rural South Africa put it, they had "no problem learning in English, because the teacher says it in Xhosa." Many classrooms currently practice a type of linguistic schizophrenia, with reading and writing being done in English, while speaking is in the local language.
It might be objected that the above suggestion would lead to tremendous difficulties in secondary schools, which operate entirely through the medium of English. If that is the case, then one solution would be to have a year of intensive English at the beginning of secondary school for those that need it (bearing in mind that all pupils would have learned some English as a subject in primary school). This solution would have the advantage of only being targeted at those who had already passed the secondary school entrance examination, thus obviating the need for years of incomprehension on the part of many of the pupils who are currently subjected to English medium. There might well be some practical problems, but the current situation is sufficiently worrying for radical changes to be at least considered. There might also be some people who would object that children would learn less at primary school, if they did not learn in English: however, the reality for most pupils is that the English language, far from being a bridge to knowledge, is in fact a barrier.
Many children in developing countries such as Malawi and Zambia, appear to be the innocent victims of their governments' opting for English in order to modernise and unify the country. In terms of modernisation, it was thought that English, the language of the global village, would enhance commercial development through facilitating international contacts. In terms of unification a 'one nation' approach was often favoured, with the use of English emphasised in public domains, and given a privileged position in education.
However, using English in education to bring about unity and modernisation has not been an unqualified success. While English may have succeeded in preventing conflict in the educational arena between competing language groups, it has created division between, on the one hand, those groups who have access to English, typically members of the reasonably well-off urban classes, and, on the other hand, those groups who do not, typically the members of poor rural classes. English in education is thus a source of disunity - a point supported in Malawi by the large differences between rural and urban English scores, and the small differences between the rural and urban Chichewa scores.
As far as modernisation is concerned many of the gains in wealth have been local, and again largely confined to an urban elite. If modernisation has as one of its aims a nation that is educated - which implies a nation that can read - then the use of English in primary schools is a double-edged sword: it is indeed educating a minority of individual pupils who move on towards the coveted white-collar jobs. On the other hand the majority who fail to acquire adequate skills in English continue with an English-medium education in a miasma of incomprehension: in the absence of comprehension there can be little development of academic concepts or skills, and there is a real danger that the school experience may be a stultifying, rather than an enlightening one.
Now that countries such as Malawi and Zambia are moving into more flexible democratic regimes, language education problems such as those indicated by the present research have become more salient. The solutions will require informed and sympathetic local negotiation; they will also need to take account of broad educational aims, of evolving literacy practices within society, and of the political aim of equalizing opportunities. Because of conflicting social and economic pressures, and a teaching base which has many weaknesses, solutions to language education problems within the government education systems are likely to be partial and slow. Education for all, and reading fluency for all, remain a distant goal in many countries: if they are to progress towards this distant goal, then educational policy makers need first to examine and adjust to the sociolinguistic and classroom realities of today.
