A case for mother tongue education?

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dc.contributor.advisorMeerkotter, Dirk
dc.contributor.advisorRidge, Stanley
dc.contributor.authorDesai, Zubeida Khatoom
dc.contributor.otherFaculty of Education
dc.date.accessioned2013-07-25T13:11:40Z
dc.date.accessioned2024-05-28T08:03:36Z
dc.date.available2012/03/29 15:16
dc.date.available2012/03/29
dc.date.available2013-07-25T13:11:40Z
dc.date.available2024-05-28T08:03:36Z
dc.date.issued2012
dc.descriptionPhilosophiae Doctor - PhDen_US
dc.description.abstractThe question as to which language should be used as a medium of instruction in schools in multilingual societies is a controversial one. In South Africa, the question is often posed in binary terms: Should the medium of instruction be a familiar local language such as Xhosa or a language of wider communication like English? This study is an attempt to answer the above question. The study profiled the writing abilities of Grade 4 and Grade 7 pupils at Themba Primary, a school located in Khayelitsha in the Western Cape, in both their mother tongue, Xhosa, and in English, their official medium of instruction at school since Grade 4. Three written tasks, which consisted of a narrative piece of writing, a reading comprehension exercise, and an expository piece of writing, were administered to the pupils in English and Xhosa. The purpose of the exercise was to examine some of the implications for educational language policy of the differences in performance in the two languages. All the tasks were authentic, in that they were based on aspects of the pupils' curriculum and written in the formal academic language pupils were expected to be exposed to in their respective grades. All the tasks were graded systematically under controlled conditions.en_US
dc.description.countrySouth Africa
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10566/15364
dc.language.isoenen_US
dc.publisherUniversity of the Western Capeen_US
dc.rights.holderUniversity of the Western Capeen_US
dc.subjectComparisons between English and Xhosa scoresen_US
dc.subjectEnglishen_US
dc.subjectLanguage proficienciesen_US
dc.subjectMedium of instructionen_US
dc.subjectMother tongueen_US
dc.subjectMother tongue educationen_US
dc.subjectReading comprehensionen_US
dc.subjectSecond language acquisitionen_US
dc.subjectWriting tasksen_US
dc.subjectXhosaen_US
dc.titleA case for mother tongue education?en_US
dc.typeThesisen_US

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