Article: Schools are plagued by language problems

[Nicodeamus]

Not really. If you are good at your job and have a good profession and only speak English you will find a job in all the English speaking countries, all of continental Europe, Russia, Middle East, Japan, Taiwan, Korea, PRC, India, most of South America and most of Africa.

if you go and work in any place in the world that is outside the English Speaking sphere, then you will just isolate yourself from the rest of the country if you are to lazy to put an effort into learning the local languages. Also most people in SA probably won't ever work outside of the country, at most they will probably tour Europe or America once or twice. Reality is that your most likely going to live here, so why not try and communicate with the country as best as possible? or you can just try and be a snob and wonder why you don't get the best out of people.

If I work on a construction site then I get a lot more out of the workers by giving basic instructions in Sepedi than in English.

 

[Mila]

My parents always said that the best gift that you can give a child is to teach him more languages. They taught me 3 at home and I learned an extra one. In a multicultural world, you're not going to be competitive if you know only 1 or 2 language.

+100

I just don't get people that complain about being taught more than one.

 

[Space_Chief]

if you go and work in any place in the world that is outside the English Speaking sphere, then you will just isolate yourself from the rest of the country if you are to lazy to put an effort into learning the local languages.

Newsflash: many, many people speak English all over the world. If you're successful and wise, you'll make friends easily and it's not really like you need to make friends with everyone. Usually people move in their own social sphere. Few lawyers hang out with garbage men anyway.

Also most people in SA probably won't ever work outside of the country, at most they will probably tour Europe or America once or twice. Reality is that your most likely going to live here, so why not try and communicate with the country as best as possible? or you can just try and be a snob and wonder why you don't get the best out of people.

False. Not communicating in a native language does not imply you're a snob. And yeah maybe most won't. Sure.

If I work on a construction site then I get a lot more out of the workers by giving basic instructions in Sepedi than in English.

Your workers will always see you as a baas unless you actually try to be genuinely friendly and treat them well. That does not mean being a pretentious post apartheid white thinking that a few phrases will buy these guys. Treat them well, pay them well and show genuine emotions you show your braai buddies and they'll respect you. Besides that, they don't need to respect you more than is necessary for a professional interaction. Fraternising with your subordinates who are in an inferior position to you (you are at a major advantage) is not fair on them either and puts them in an awkward spot.

 

[noxibox]

this is what i was talking about when i said this teaching in mother tongue is another barrier in education, african written language is often different to the way you speak it.

You haven't noticed the same is true of English and Afrikaans?

Whats next is when you get to university most courses are taught in english/afrikaans even in historically black universities because most lecturer's aquired their qualification in said language

That is well beyond basic education.

A African kid has to deal with 3 languages from the word go! Mother tongue then Afrikaans in day to day communication and English in the class room. Because English is a world language, some monkey has decided to use it in most African schools.

20 years ago they might have had to learn Afrikaans to be able to deal with government, although documentation was usually in English and Afrikaans so it wasn't really mandatory and even the police could mostly understand English. If they were going to choose to instruct all children in a single language then there is no reason Afrikaans should be chosen.

Afrikaans is much more used

Not really.

There are simply too few British people in SA to make English a general teaching language.

:wtf:

My daughters creche and school teach solely in English.
Most of the kids are black, the only time they are allowed to speak a non english language is during breaks.
The parents think it's a good thing.

There's research showing that hostility towards the child's home language in the classroom undermines learning far more than the difficulty of learning in a second language. Even if teaching is restricted to a single language the children should never be prohibited from or reprimanded/punished for using their home language in the classroom.

It is not practical to teach in all official languages. We should decide to accept one language as the official language - English. My first language is Afrikaans, yet I had to adopt English in order to further my studies.

That's further studies. There is a pile of research showing that early education should occur in the mother tongue. If that's not practical then the only alternative is to prepare them from early on, so you can narrow the range of languages needed in the first several years of school. Either way you're going to need teachers. If they arrive at school not speaking English then it is not appropriate to start their education in English. The language can be learned alongside, but their primary instruction must then be in their mother tongue.

Not really. If you are good at your job and have a good profession and only speak English you will find a job in all the English speaking countries, all of continental Europe, Russia, Middle East, Japan, Taiwan, Korea, PRC, India, most of South America and most of Africa.

I've many times seen 'Must speak fluent English' listed as a requirement.

 

[Space_Chief]

I've many times seen 'Must speak fluent English' listed as a requirement.

True. For Middle Eastern, Asian, Korean and Japanese jobs - that's often the case, if not always.

For Middle Eastern jobs, being white is also sometimes a compulsory requirement, and some companies have a minimum quota of 25% or more whites. These are Arab owned companies.

 

[SoulTax]

I don't understand why people would want to be taught in a language other than English. Sure when you are being taught 2+2 it helps when someone explains it in your mother tongue. But when you are being taught complex chemical compounds, or the anatomy of a mammal, English is just about the only language in SA that can encompass those things.

Just like "There is no such word as Hermaphrodite in Pedi". There are many words that simply don't exist in most of the African languages. Not to mention the immense lack of research material in those languages. Sure they can translate textbooks into 11 different languages. But then what happens when 4 different language speakers are employed onto the same "technical" team. How are they going to explain anything to each other..... English you say? But then if they were never taught in English, they wont know how to communicate their technical expertise in English.

It puts you at a disadvantage. The problem is not that kids are not taught in their mother tongue. The problem is that they do not have enough quality English teachers at Primary level, to get the base language up high enough. Like it or not, English is the language that most technical fields use to write papers, record research, just about everything happens in English. Not learning in English is probably the silliest thing you can ever do with regards to your future education and career.