1. INCREMENTAL IMPLEMENTATION OF AFRICAN LANGUAGES (IIAL) IN ALL SOUTH AFRICAN SCHOOL Presentation to Portfolio Committee 11 June 2013

2. PRESENTATION OUTLINE 2. Legislative mandate
1. Purpose of the presentation
2. Legislative mandate
Lessons learnt from provincial initiatives
The rationale for promoting equitable
use of languages
5. Assessment (ANA, PIRLS, NSC)
6. The Language Development Framework
7. What is IIAL?

3. PRESENTATION OUTLINE…
7. The objectives of the IIAL
8. Language selection for FAL
9. Implications for implementation of IIAL
10. Advocacy
11. Plan for consultation
12. Implementation plan

4. 1. THE PURPOSE OF THE PRESENTATION
To provide the Portfolio Committee with the rationale for, details of and system readiness for the Incremental Introduction of African Languages (IIAL) in all public schools.

5. 2. LEGISLATIVE MANDATE The IIAL flows from the following legislative
framework:
SA Constitution, 1996
National Education Policy Act, Section 3(4)(m), Language in Education Policy
South African School Act, Section 6(1), The Norms and Standards regarding language policy

6. 2A. THE SOUTH AFRICAN CONSTITUTION
The South African Constitution recognises languages as one of the seven founding provisions.
Section 6 of the Constitution states the following
(1) The official languages of the Republic are Sepedi, Sesotho, Setswana, siSwati, Tshivenda, Xitsonga, Afrikaans, English, isiNdebele, isiXhosa and isiZulu.
(2) Recognising the historically diminished use and status of the indigenous languages of our people, the state must take practical and positive measures to elevate the status and advance the use of these languages.

7. 2A. THE SOUTH AFRICAN CONSTITUTION...
Section 29(2), under the Bill of Rights
Everyone has the right to receive education in the official language or languages of their choice in public educational institutions where that education is reasonably practicable.
In order to ensure the effective access to, and implementation of, this right, the state must consider all reasonable educational alternatives, including single medium institutions, taking into account-
(a) equity;
(b) practicability; and
(c) the need to redress the results of past racially discriminatory laws and practices.

8. 2B. THE NATIONAL EDUCATION POLICY ACT
The National Education Policy Act of 1996 provides for the advancement and protection of the fundamental rights of every person guaranteed in terms of Chapter 3 of the Constitution:
It provides for every student to be instructed in the language of his or her choice where this is reasonably practicable
It also provides for every person to use the language and participate in the cultural life of his or her choice within an education institution

9. 2B. THE NATIONAL EDUCATION POLICY ACT...
Is made possible by the Language in Education Policy in terms of Section 3(4)(m) of the National Education Policy Act, 1996 (Act 27 of 1996)
The Norms and Standards in LiEP are published in terms of Section 6(1) of the South African Schools Act, 1996.
These policies proclaim the objective of providing a strong foundation for the protection and advancement of the country’s diverse cultures and languages

10. 2C. LANGUAGE IN EDUCATION POLICY
The LiEP compels the Department to promote multilingualism, to develop the official South African languages equitably, and to foster respect for all languages used in the country, including South African Sign Language
The promotion of multilingualism and the protection of linguistic rights in the schooling system are constitutionally rooted in NEPA and is reflected in the Language in Education Policy (LiEP).

11. 2C. THE AIMS OF THE LiEP
to promote full participation in society and the economy through equitable and meaningful access to education;
to pursue the language policy most supportive of general conceptual growth amongst learners, and hence to establish additive multilingualism as an approach to language in education;
to promote and develop all the official languages;
to support the teaching and learning of all other languages required by learners or used by communities in South Africa, including languages used for religious purposes, languages which are important for international trade and communication

12. 2C. THE AIMS OF THE LiEP...
to counter disadvantages resulting from different kinds of mismatches between home languages and languages of learning and teaching;
to develop programmes for the redress of previously disadvantaged languages.
To provide Alternative and Augmentative Communication facilitate communication for learners with limited or no speaking skills.

13. 2C. THE AIMS OF THE LiEP...
the promotion, fulfilment and development of the state's overarching language goals in school education in compliance with the Constitution, namely:
the protection, promotion, fulfilment and extension of the individual's language rights and means of communication in education; and
the facilitation of national and international communication through promotion of bi- or multilingualism through cost-efficient and effective mechanisms,
to redress the neglect of the historically disadvantaged languages in school education.

14. 3. LESSONS LEARNT FROM PROVINCIAL INITIATIVES
Eastern Cape
The province is piloting usage of IsiXhosa as LoLT in the Intermediate Phase in 74 schools.
The are former Model C schools that are offering IsiXhosa as SAL in the Foundation Phase.
The province has a plan to train isiXhosa language teachers to teach at FAL level – utilizing teachers already in the system.
Western Cape
In 2006 the province piloted usage of IsiXhosa as LoLT in the Intermediate Phase.
The province can train IsiXhosa teachers to teach at FAL level – utilizing teachers already in the system.
North West
Since 2003 the province introduced Setswana incrementally. It was mainly done at SAL level. They will have to switch to FAL.

15. 3. LESSONS LEARNT FROM PROVINCIAL INITIATIVES
Limpopo
In 2006 the province encouraged former Model C schools to offer African languages at Home Language or First Additional Language level.
The province provided schools with African languages teachers.
They are going to utilize teachers already in school staff establishment for the compulsory learning of African languages by all learners.
Mpuma langa
Schools initiated offering of an African language as a additional subject at FAL level. Learners are given a choice of writing the examination or not.

16. 4. THE RATIONALE FOR PROMOTING EQUITABLE USE OF LANGUAGES
The analysis of the ANA results have indicated that even in those schools where a learner is not being taught in his home language, that learner is able to access learning using his home language but not proficiently.
Currently many schools are still not affording learners the opportunity to learn an African language, not fulfilling the Constitutional mandate.
If African languages are not shown to have utility for teaching and learning, these languages will be lost – together with its culture and heritage

17. 4. THE RATIONALE FOR PROMOTING EQUITABLE USE OF LANGUAGES ...
Poor learning outcomes in South Africa are in the main as a result of poor language proficiency and utility.
The results of ANA, PIRLS, TIMSS, SAQMEC and the NSC have confirmed this on various occasions.
Very little or nothing has been done by institutions, broader civil society or the sector to address this perennial problem.
The time has now come to comprehensively deal with this challenge through the implementation of the Language Development Framework.

18. ASSESSMENT EXAMPLES

19. ANA - HOME LANGUAGES- GRADE 3
Specific skills/knowledge/competencies assessed
What misconceptions were found?
Writing
rewrite a given sentence correctly using the correct punctuation
recognise a question and use a question mark
use an apostrophe to show possession
use a capital letter to start a sentence
Learners did not understand the instruction and the use of the word “rewrite” and “punctuate”.

21. PREPIRLS 2011 PERFORMANCE BY TEST LANGUAGE
International Centre point
prePIRLS tested children in all 11 languages
The children were selected to write the test in the language that schools offered the children as the language of learning and teaching in grades 1-3.
Therefore, children did not necessarily write the test in their home language, but rather the language that they had been taught to read in for Grades 1-3.
In this presentation, I will make a distinction between the test language and the home language.
In this graph, we see the Grade 4 learners performance in prePIRLS compared to the international centre point (the red line). The following observations are made:
Only two language groups performed above the international centre point –Afrikaans and English.
The learners tested in English achieved the highest scores.
The highest performing African language group was siSwati, followed by isiZulu.
The lowest performing learners were tested in Sepedi and in Tshivenda and fall points below the highest group of learners.

22. prePIRLS Performance for Learners Writing in the Same or Different Language to their Home Language
In terms of how the learners performed:
Overall, children writing in their home language performed better.
However, no difference was found for learners tested in isiNdebele and Sepedi.
The lowest performing group were learners tested in Tshivenda who did not write the test in their home language and achieved 20 points fewer than second language learners in Xitsonga.
Home language learners in siSwati and isiZulu achieved the highest scores in the African languages.
The largest difference in scores (80 points) was found amongst the learners tested in English.
The second language English learners still achieved 53 points above their peers in siSwati.

23. PIRLS 2011 PERFORMANCE COMPARED TO REFERENCE COUNTRIES
We are looked at our Grade 5 learners performance in comparison to the other participants in the main study:
At this stage we fall 150 points below the top performing countries.
Our grade 5 learners in Afrikaans and English are comparable to those Grade 4 learners from Indonesia and Qatar and Grade 6 learners from Botswana.
They achieve higher scores than Grade 4 learners from Oman and Morocco.

24. PIRLS 2011 OVERALL RESULTS
South Africa is considered a benchmark participant in PIRLS This is because we did not test all languages but only 2 languages as explained earlier. Therefore we cannot strictly compare ourselves to other countries or systems but we can merely get an indication of how learners tested in Afrikaans and English fared.
Children tested in Afrikaans and English performed well below the international centre point – indicated by the red line. In terms of comparability, they achieved similar results to grade 4 learners from Abu Dhabi, Grade 6 learners from Morocco, Kuwait and Botswana. However, they were well below the other benchmarking participants from the USA, Canada, Spain, Dubai.

25. NSC LANGUAGE PERFORMANCE
Paper 1
Q1 Comprehension
Q2 Summary
Q3 Analysing and
advertisement
Q4 Analysing a
cartoon
Q5 Language and
editing skills

26. Paper 2 Q1To Kill a Mockingbird (Essay)
Q2 To Kill a Mockingbird (Contextual)
Q3 Lord of the Flies (Essay)
Q4 Lord of the Flies (Contextual
Q5 A Grain of Wheat (Essay)
Q6 A Grain of Wheat (Contextual)
Q7 Romeo and Juliet (Essay)
Q8 Romeo and Juliet (Contextual)
Q9 Nothing but the Truth (Essay)
Q10 Nothing but the Truth (Contextual)
Q11 The Coffee-cart Girl (Essay)
Q12 Relatives (Contextual)
Q13 On his blindness (Contextual)
Q14 The Serf (Contextual)
Q15 Auto Wreck (Contextual)
Q16 Cheetah (Contextual

27. Paper 3
Q1 Essay
Q2 Longer transitional text
Q3 Shorter text

28. 5. LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT FRAMEWORK
Project to prepare for
Progress
EFAL
Introduced in 2012 in Grade 1 and in 2013 in Grade2
IIAL
Consultation at different fora; Advocacy through discussions and presentations; lessons from provincial initiatives; draft policy; basic LTSM in place; implementation plan in place
SA Sign Language
Curriculum completed in 2012; piloting in GP and Ec in 2013 to prepare for full implementation in 2014
English across the curriculum
Concept document developed. Working with provinces to prepare for implementation in 2014.

29. 6. WHAT IS IIAL?
Promoting the development and increased utility of African languages by introducing learners incrementally to learning an African language from Grade R to 12;
It aims to strengthen the use of African languages at Home Language level, and so increase use of those languages for academic purposes, as well as ensure that all non-African language speakers speak an African Language.

30. 7. THE OBJECTIVES OF IIAL
To improve proficiency in and utility of the previously marginalised African languages (at First Additional Language level); raise confidence of parents to choose their own languages as languages for learning and teaching;
To increase access to languages by all learners, beyond English and Afrikaans;
To promote social cohesion and expand opportunities for the development of African languages as a significant part of preserving heritage and cultures.

31. 8. LANGUAGE SELECTION FOR FAL1
Xitsonga 2
*Nguni languages
IsiZulu, IsiXhosa, IsiNdebele and Siswati 3
*Sotho languages
Sepedi, Setswana and Sesotho 4
Tshivenda 5
Afrikaans
All learners are compelled to offer English – as FAL or HL
All learners will be compelled to offer a second FAL, which should be an African language from the above provision
*The terms “Nguni” and “Sotho” are used solely for the purpose of this
presentation

32. 9. THE IMPLICATIONS FOR IMPLEMENTATION OF IIAL
Areas that have implications
Responsibility
Timeframe
Progress
Time allocation
Branch T
Sept 2013
Meeting with the relevant stakeholders regarding extension of school contact time
Discussion with the ELRC
Post provisioning model
Jan 2014
Provinces were requested to work at post provisioning models to accommodate IIAL
Orientation of teachers to teach African languages at FAL level
Oct 2013
FP CAPS orientation took place in 2011.
EFAL training on teaching methodologies took place in 2011.
LTSM – primary teaching and learning support materials – workbooks and textbooks
Branch C
Currently available
April 2014
FAL Workbooks are available for all languages – Grade 1.
National Catalogue of textbooks developed for Grades 1-12
The Grade R resource kit is available to support the teaching of languages.
Exemplar ANA items for drill-and-practice have been developed for distribution.
Special call for submission from publishers– FAL readers and textbooks in African languages.
Initial teacher training
HEIs
Ongoing
Funza Lushaka Bursary targets FP and African languages teachers.
UKZN has made isiZulu a compulsory subject for all under-graduate students
Financial implications
Branch P & C
The branch is putting in a bid to National Treasury for funding the IIAL.

33. 10. ADVOCACY The Minister and the MECs should take the lead
An aggressive advocacy campaign targeting parents and learners is being finalized and aims at:
Promoting the use of Home Languages in the early grades,
Promoting workbooks to support the teaching of African languages, and
Promoting the use of African languages in the early grades - developing learner’s competence in English at the same time

34. 11. PLAN FOR CONSULTATION Stakeholder Groupings Progress HEDCOM
Consultation done; Policy endorsed and recommended to CEM for approval
CEM
Approved further consultation
NCF and SAPA
Presentations made and discussions are ongoing
Broader public and civil society
Draft policy will be released for public comment
Organized Labour (HEDCOM Sub-Committee)
Presentation made and discussions
Education Portfolio Committee
Presentation on 11 June 2013

35. 12. IMPLEMENTATION PLAN FOR THE POLICY
2014: Grades R and 1
2015: Grade 2
2016: Grade 3
2017: Grade 4
2018: Grade 5
2019: Grade 6
2020: Grade 7
2021: Grade 8
2022: Grade 9
2023: Grade 10
2024: Grade 11
2025: Grade 12

36. WHO CAN DOUBT THE IMPORTANCE OF ONE’S OWN LANGUAGE ?
“If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head.
If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.”
- Nelson Mandela

37. THANK YOU