An evaluation of IsiXhosa home language orthography of grade 12 learners in selected secondary schools
| dc.contributor.author | Mankayi Mthobeli | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2025-09-11T06:54:54Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2025-09-11T06:54:54Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2024 | |
| dc.description.abstract | This study aims to evaluate isiXhosa Home Language orthography of grade 12 learners in selected Secondary Schools. The role of indigenous languages in South Africa is complex and ambiguous. Their use in education has been governed by legislation, beginning with the Bantu Education Act, 1953.IsiXhosa is an African language spoken in South Africa, mainly in the Eastern Cape, Western Cape, Free State and Northern Cape. Languages evolve and diversify over time, and the history of their evolution can be reconstructed by comparing modern languages to determine which traits their ancestral languages must have had in order for the later developmental stages to occur. To date the language has evolved, but we are currently facing a group of learners that cannot write their mother tongue language, even though they learn it at school and at home where they are speaking the language. A controversial question could be asked if teacher too can write a free-error text? The study employs qualitative research as it is an approach for exploring and understanding the meaning individuals or groups ascribe to a social or human problem. The research sites for this study were 8 selected Secondary Schools from four education districts of the Western Cape Province; two secondary schools were visited from each district; namely Metro East, South, North and Central. I chose to visit these selected secondary schools from these different districts because of different perspectives the researcher poses which includes sociolinguistic factors as these districts varies in terms of demographics information. The researcher notes that in some districts like Metro South and Metro North learners are mixed with other ethnic groups which may lead to a compromising of isiXhosa home language which will reveal the need of evaluating orthography of grade 12 learners. Findings reveal that learners are confronted by challenges like errors and mistakes when they are writing transactional texts. These orthographic errors and mistakes include errors in subject verb-agreement, capitalisation, errors in pronouns, spelling, auxiliary verbs, errors in inflection, errors in colloquialism, errors in deletion of letters, letter mis-selection and errors in sentences. These are the serious violations of isiXhosa standard orthographic rules that need to be curbed. In doing so learners can maintain and improve the learning and teaching of isiXhosa language, so as to preserve the isiXhosa language orthography. | |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://hdl.handle.net/10566/20886 | |
| dc.language.iso | en | |
| dc.publisher | University of the Western Cape | |
| dc.subject | Orthography | |
| dc.subject | Evaluation | |
| dc.subject | Error analysis | |
| dc.subject | Errors and Mistakes | |
| dc.subject | Transactional text | |
| dc.title | An evaluation of IsiXhosa home language orthography of grade 12 learners in selected secondary schools | |
| dc.type | Thesis |