Research Articles (DAES)

Permanent URI for this collection

http://hdl.handle.net/11070/151

Browse

Browsing Research Articles (DAES) by Author "Iijambo, Tangeni"

Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Implementation of the government of the Republic of Namibia’s language policy for schools in selected primary schools in Windhoek
    (Namibian Educational Research Association (NERA), 2008) Ashton, D.; Iijambo, Tangeni; Matengu, Marika; Kalenga, E.
    This study investigated the implementation of Namibia’s Language Policy in Grades 1-4 in selected schools in the Windhoek area. Thirty-six teachers of Grades 1-4 in nine schools were individually interviewed. Seven principals were also interviewed. Namibia’s Language Policy states that English is the official language of the country and that instruction for primary learners Grades 1-3 be delivered in the mother language. The issues investigated in this study were: 1) how does this mother tongue implementation occur in a heterogeneous classroom where there are learners with a variety of mother languages and where the teacher’s mother tongue may not be that of the learner? 2) What are the social dynamics in a school where the learners and the teachers are from different ethnic groups? The findings indicate that only eight of the 36 teachers had a medium of instruction in one of Namibia’s native languages (six in Afrikaans, one in Khoe-Khoe and one in Oshiwambo). English supersedes mother language teaching as the default medium of instruction in many heterogeneous classrooms even though it is not a mother language. Furthermore, parents are requesting that their children be enrolled in the English medium of instruction streams as opposed to the mother language streams.