From left: Dr Hong Gang Jin, General Director of Associated Colleges in China; Dr Antonia Scheicher, Director of NCOLCTL and ALTA; and Dr Dianna Moodley, University Language Board. IsiZulu Project Leader for the College of Law and Management Studies, Dr Dianna Moodley, recently initiated a stimulating discussion around UKZN’s bilingualism policy at a conference held by the National Council for the Less Commonly Taught Languages (NCOLCTL) in conjunction with the African Languages Teachers Association (ALTA) in Chicago, United States. Moodley emphasised how user-attitudes played a pivotal role in either enhancing or inhibiting African language usage not only at UKZN but in South African Higher Education generally.Higher Education representatives from institutions around the world shared similar sentiments on the difficulty of promoting indigenous or minority languages in an atmosphere where English remained the preferred lingua franca in education. Moodley shared with the audience UKZN’s latest bilingualism policy implementation plan to include isiZulu as a requirement in all undergraduate degree programmes. While she strongly supports the bilingualism policy, she believes, based on her latest study on the attitudes of the university community towards isiZulu usage, that there could be a very real danger of appearing to impose the language in an environment where people feel comfortable with English-only. She suggests the way forward is to provide “external activators” to stimulate interest in language acquisition and usage among students and academics. Moodley said incentivising the university community with tangible rewards, fervent marketing of the language, highlighting its benefits, and more prudent use of funding could catapult actual on-the-ground usage of African languages for teaching and learning. ‘Since most UKZN academics are unprepared or underprepared to teach in an African language, professional re-tooling in African language paedogogy, curriculum development and language proficiency is imperative,’ she said. Moodley is currently networking with academics from the University of Georgia, Indiana University and New York’s Hamilton College in the United States to share their expertise with UKZN academics on pre-service and in-service professional workshops for instructors of African languages. These workshops are designed to empower academics with both theoretical and practical means to effectively design standards-based specific curriculum and lesson plans in African languages.
Posted on: Wed, 17 Jul 2013 08:39:45 +0000
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