The ManicaPost
Morris Mtisi
I HAVE the pleasure of answering important questions teachers and parents have been asking me over a period of time through App or my email.
Let me start with a question three adults asked. The question is: “MM, why has English become a thorn in the flesh of all our teaching and learning in the schools?
“I ask this because it has become more surprising to pass English than fail it. I know you encounter many students who have failed English Language, some for more than three, four sittings, and seek special tuition from you. I recommended my own daughter to you after getting three Ds and one E in her exams. Thank you she finally got a B. From a D to a B! I was pleasantly surprised. What is the problem? I am Mr . . . (name supplied)”. He asked me not to publish his name.
The other two adults who asked a similar question are Mrs Rosebat Ntuli, a primary school teacher in Chipinge, and Mr Phillip Ruvinga in Bikita District.
MM Answers:
I have discussed or debated this question with friends and colleagues and sometimes strangers who take good advantage of their knowledge of my passion for this “difficult” language and my work over the years in The Manica Post and now Diamond-FM Radio (Education).
Here is what I think in all earnest and honesty:
First, the approach to the teaching and learning of English in the schools unwisely took a shift from the old teach-grammar, teach-basics method to lacklustre English-for-use-English-for-Communication approach. This means children in the schools especially in the primary school are now taught the language as they use it, as they speak it, as they write it.
There is no more the old-fashioned approach where learners were subjected to language structures; Tenses, Verbs, Nouns, Adjectives, Adverbs, Noun Clauses, Adverbial phrases of time, reason, place, manner etc. These were deliberately taught to help learners to correctly and beautifully thread words together (word placement) following acknowledged rules of the English language.
That is why the products of this old approach spoke beautiful and correct language even at very low grades. The skills were deep and imperishable. An old Standard 6 teacher spoke and wrote English impressively adhering to the strict rules of grammar learnt and mastered from a very young age, say Sub A or B, which are today’s equivalent of ECD A and B. Those given to amplified comparisons do not hesitate to say those Standard 6 products were as good as today’s university graduates in their mastery of the command of written or spoken English Language. I wish I could dis agree.
Second, English is acquired through wide reading. Many years ago (I was there the many years ago I am talking about) there were not many books around. Sometimes it was only the teacher who had a few story books beyond the class reader. But he or she read these stories until we knew every word, comma and full stop. He or she read them with an infectious passion that left us more enthralled, perhaps even more knowledgeable, than the writer. Quite amazing!
The teachers … literally all of them, infected us with the love to read more of these story books. That is why we remember the Radio Van today . . . and the story of “Abdul and His Shoe” . . . “How the Tortoise Got Its Scaly Shell” and others. That does not happen today. The teachers do not or are not able to whet a reading appetite in their pupils. So pupils do not read! They watch TV forever. They have ignored the source of language enrichment. Need I say more?
Third, the majority of teachers of English themselves today, especially the more youthful ones, are products of a dead generation of students who were eluded by both the first and second points above. They are products of the lacklustre approach I referred to earlier on.
They can and do only communicate in English but fall far short of the mark. Let me be polite and add, “Generally speaking” so that I am not accused of seemingly painting every teacher with the same brush.
Fourth, and for today, finally, schools underestimate the value of libraries. That is why they buy beautiful Chinese-built buses and say nothing about the school library even if there is not even one book for the pleasure of pupils’ reading in the school. Library books are very expensive to buy. Buses are much cheaper.
I have yet to hear one member of the School Development Committee suggest a budget for 50 library books for a school that has none – not even especially for the English Department. Buses and the school head’s Navara are the development projects – not libraries. Alas! This is the tragic oversight.
When the pupils fail their English they all look at the teacher and accuse him of laziness and not plapping the pupils. Beautiful nonsense, isn’t it? Mwana angadzidze Chirungu chose from the mouth of a teacher whose own mastery of the language is shaky or questionable, zvinoita here ma “comrades”? Pupils who do well in English read widely . . . and wildly too. There is no substitute to a culture of reading. But where are the books to read!
My girlfriend (not in the sense you think) has a beautiful home library with over 200 books. Her daughter now, at university, mastered English at a tender age and graduated to a beautiful writer and speaker as she advanced with her education. How many parents support their children at whatever age, by buying them books to read and building up home libraries?
I know many who buy phones and watches and every other gift but books. Saka Chirungu chacho anodzidza kunani? From boyfriends who speak “kinder-like” and “Ndokulover” and lots of dancehall-lingo . . . pekeipe and all? Kana kuti from you the parent? Well, well done for the effort!
Just be careful of the common errors. So long as you remember not to say to them, “Let’s go for shopping. Let’s go for swimming and we eat or buy grocery/ calling their uncle a pensioneer instead of a pensioner! And closing windows and doors instead of shutting them! Because if you do, when they fail you might as well share the U-cake in half.
- Next week I will answer more questions. Send me more if you have any to do with English, Literature or Education in general. Use my App number 0773 883 293. The education page is your page. Enjoy.
