University of KwaZulu-Natal’s students’ perceptions and perspectives on bilingual instruction at the institution.
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Date
2018
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Abstract
Theories regarding the role of language in education state that if a student is taught in a
language they do not understand adequately, they will find it difficult or impossible to
understand the meaning of academic content. The democratic government suggests that the
current nationally official languages of tuition continue to be some of the main barriers to
epistemological access for black South African students in public institutions of higher
education. In an effort to reform this, they have recommended that these institutions include at
least one major provincial indigenous South African language in their institutional language
policies and make concentrated efforts to further develop that language as an official language
of academia. There have been both celebratory and disapproving reactions to these
recommendations from different stakeholders, including tertiary students. The University of
KwaZulu-Natal is one of the very few institutions who have heeded the call by including
isiZulu in their language policy. In order to explore this university’s Black African students’
perspectives and perceptions of bilingual instruction at their institution, this study held
individual open-ended interviews with fourteen purposefully selected students at the
Edgewood and Pietermaritzburg campuses. Thematic analysis was employed to analyse the
interview transcriptions. All the participants’ perspectives on bilingual instruction appeared to
be intertwined with their perceptions of language use and esteem in wider social and economic
contexts. The students from Edgewood had been undertaking an Honours degree that was
officially making use of bilingual instruction. Their perspectives were only positive, and they
spoke comprehensively about the pedagogical benefits they had perceived in their experiences.
The Pietermaritzburg students had no experience with bilingual instruction at the institution.
While some of them disapproved this inclusion of isiZulu, some expressed support, but they
stated that this inclusion should be limited to the lower phases of study as a remedial means to
improve students’ proficiency in English.
Description
Masters Degree. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg.