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Crossposted from H-SAFRICA
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1998
From: Clinton Jones
<clintonj@global.co.za>
An added dimension here is the fact that many of the teachers of
new entrants to the university system are in fact graduates of
the old order, in other words, they matriculated in the mid
1980's went to primarily black focussed universities and
unfortunately probably learnt and were taught in the vernacular,
consequently their sentence structures etc in English is poor,
and this permeated into how and what they taught in high density
and rural schools.
At mainstream universities the teaching medium is English and
Afrikaans and consequently new matriculants who have scraped a
pass in English and had school teachers with poor English
language skills are suffering and have an influence on their
peers and motivation levels amongst their tutors and teachers.
Quite apart from the cultural challenges, the social issues and
the normal teenage issues there's now a simple failure to
communicate and understand.
Without appearing too pessimistic... It will probably take at
least another ten years before this issue is addressed. I will
say at this juncture that the eloquence and comprehension skills
of the average indigenous Zimbabwean or Botswanan (in particular)
are far superior to those of their South African equivalents.
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