FYI, I posted a review by Nkonko M. Kamwangamalu of a book called "Decolonization, Globalization: Language-in-Education Policy and Practice" to Multilingual_Literacy at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Multilingual_Literacy/message/358 . It contains the following summary of one chapter that may be of interest. There is of course a very strong pedagogical argument for use of African languages in at least primary education (this follows ample research internationally showing the benefits of first language education in the context of bilingual education). The passage below concerns what linguists call "codeswitching," or the use of more than one language in the course of a single conversation, discourse, etc.
Don Osborn "In [her] chapter Birgit Brock-Utne also documents the use of codeswitching in African classrooms, specifically in Tanzania and South Africa. Also, the author critically revisits the argument often advanced mostly by Western donors that Africa's multilingualism, among other factors, hinders the development and use of African languages in the educational system. Drawing on the work of Kwesi Prah and others on harmonization Brock-Utne argues, and I agree with her, that the argument against multilingualism and related factors does not hold. Prah's work shows convincingly that the number of languages spoken in Africa has, against the background of a painful colonial history and vested interests, been overstated. Also, there are countries in Africa, among them Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, Botswana, to name a few, where indigenous languages are not used throughout the entire educational system despite the fact that the majority of the population in these countries speak one major indigenous language. Like [Margie] Probyn, Brock-Une calls for the legitimization of codeswitching and for its use not only in teaching but also in students' examination answers." (In Probyn's chapter, according to the review, she "argues for teachers' codeswitching skills to be recognized as legitimate classroom strategies, and to be into effective classroom practice for the strategic and coherent use of both the learners' home language and the official medium of instruction, here English (p.167). She concludes, however, that 'even if CS is recognized, school communities are unlikely to be convinced of the value of indigenous languages since politically and economically these languages have a lower status vis-à-vis English' (p.168)." A third contributor to the book, Grace Bunyi, argues against codeswitching by teachers.) Info on the book and review author: Lin, Angel M.Y., and Peter W. Martin 2005. Decolonization, Globalization: Language-in-Education Policy and Practice. (Multilingual Matters) The review was written and originally posted on the Linguist list by: Nkonko M. Kamwangamalu, Department of English, Howard University, Washington, DC ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> AIDS in India: A "lurking bomb." Click and help stop AIDS now. http://us.click.yahoo.com/VpTY2A/lzNLAA/yQLSAA/TpIolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AfricanLanguages/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
