Aplicaciones de los modelos inversos en el ámbito internacional

African languages have been offered in some universities and African

language departments tended or tend to focus their courses on comparative

linguistics, and phonetics, whilst neglecting the important area of applied

First language students of African languages, and with special reference to

isiXhosa, would naturally have studied their language in this context. This

study shows that this is one of the reasons why students are not interested in

taking isiXhosa as a course. They say that they do not like, for example,

phonetics and comparative linguistics that is why they do not take isiXhosa

as a course at university level.

From the foregoing discussion, it is very crucial that the Department of

Education must change the curriculum so as to accommodate the interests

and the need of studying isiXhosa for the working environment in the

outside world. Another significant factor is the absence of first language

courses in certain historically white universities and second language

courses in most historically black universities. There is also lack of material

and trained language practitioners for the African languages. Alexander in

Heugh (1993:30) notes that:

– it must be clear that the lack of material and trained human

resources in virtually all the indigenous languages in South Africa will

languages. Any model which does not address and make allowance

for this reality will necessarily disadvantage the students/learners.

From the above quotation, it is apparent that something must be done to

address the problem of a lack of material and trained human resources. In

schools and universities learners could be encouraged by their teachers and

lecturers to become language facilitators, thus empowering the pupils and

allowing them to be seen by their peers as valuable language sources.

Julie Frederikse (1993:28), in her report aimed at getting pupils who were

first language speakers of Zulu to teach their peers, comments that this

project aimed at least in part, to challenge the conventional power

relationships between first language English speakers and second language

English speakers.

Based on the above, it is crucial that schools, universities and also all

language organizations should develop sufficient resources to increase

training in, and promotion of, these languages with specific reference to

It has been noted that universities which do offer services towards the

development of isiXhosa and other African languages are doing that on a

very small scale.

IsiXhosa beyond the classroom will flourish only if teachers set a positive,

supportive and creative example, by using their undoubted power to promote

it. From the questionnaires, students reported that they believe that it was

important to maintain their mother-tongue which is isiXhosa. Fifteen of

twenty interviewees (parents) wanted their children to see themselves in the

future as fluent isiXhosa speaking people, three strongly felt that

government should have isiXhosa taught as first language not as second or

third language.

African languages should be compulsory at schools just like English. Parents

move their children to English medium schools despite their support for

isiXhosa and that will increase their children’s exposure to English and not

isiXhosa because isiXhosa that is taught at these English medium schools is

conversational and not academic. De Klerk (2000) says if you cannot speak

From the students’ interviews conducted, the response from all of them was

that they want isiXhosa to be used as a language because they feel that, that

will maintain the culture and identity of the community. Students say that it

is important to maintain isiXhosa so as to not forget who they are and where

they really come from.

In response to the question how can we maintain the fullest use of

isiXhosa’? student commented that it must be introduced as a subject; we

must speak it daily and fluently and do not mix it with any language, we

must read isiXhosa books’. Students feel that isiXhosa should be taught in

schools so as to encourage isiXhosa learners to gain interest in isiXhosa and

to know the language better. Some say they speak it enough at home and

they find the language difficult.

They feel that as much as they would like to encourage their children to

learn isiXhosa; they do not think that by the time they become parents, the

language will still be taught at school. When asked if they think that English

speakers should be encouraged to learn isiXhosa; they say they should

because many black people are not educated and they struggle to

It is interesting that seventy percent of students do not like the attitude of

those isiXhosa students/people who speak only English and never their own

language. They say they feel sorry for them, that they are ashamed of their

own language and themselves and mostly they are Xhosas and will never

change.

Twenty five percent of the students say they do not like their language, they

find it difficult since they were never taught isiXhosa at school and some say

they were sent to English nurseries at the age of 9 months. Others say they

cannot find the word they are looking for in isiXhosa so they find it easier to

phrase their conversation in English.

Eighty percent of the students from English medium schools say they learn

more effectively in English and it is the easiest for them to use when

presenting, and twenty percent from other schools say they prefer isiXhosa

although they understand English but it becomes hard for them to express

Students like care and are proud of their language, but sixty percent of them

do not want to learn it as a subject or course at school and tertiary level.

2.11 Conclusion

Chapter two defined language planning with special reference to isiXhosa

from the perspective of different authors. It gave reasons for the negative

attitudes towards African languages, especially isiXhosa. The chapter shows

that language and culture are interlinked and they convey culturally and

socially relevant ideas.

This chapter also showed the importance of maintaining language and

culture and that language is essential to thinking and learning. Learners and

teachers attitudes towards African languages were also seen to be almost the

same. The chapter reveals that African languages are not offered in some

universities.

Finally this chapter showed that positive attitudes towards isiXhosa language

Chapter 3

Status Planning 3.1 Introduction

Language planning can be divided into three main sections: status planning,

corpus planning and acquisition planning. Status planning deals mainly with

language policy and its implementation as well as the selection of languages

to be used for official purposes and education. Corpus planning, however,

deals with codification, standardization and language elaboration with regard

to technical development for educational and public sectors. Acquisition

planning according to Cooper (1989:157) refers to organized efforts to

promote the learning of a language.

This chapter focuses on status planning. It investigates the teaching of

isiXhosa. It looks at the language maintenance and use of multilingualism.

Just as languages change over time, the functions they serve for particular