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MOZAMBIQUE-EDUCATION-LANGUAGE-CHILDREN,FEATURE
In Mozambique, classes come alive in local languages
MANHIÇA, Mozambique, July 16, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – About 50 children sit on a
bare classroom floor in front of their teacher in what could be any lesson in
Mozambique, except that they are not learning in Portuguese, the country’s
official language.
The class is being taught in Changana, a local language spoken in southern
Mozambique and in the capital Maputo that is closely related to Tsonga spoken
across southern Africa.
Wearing backpacks and surrounded by a pile of books, the children aged six
and seven are gripped by the teacher’s every word — a concentration level
almost impossible to achieve in Portuguese.
“Kids are breastfed by mums speaking Changana and grow up until the age of
five speaking Changana,” Helena Joaquim Arguenha, their teacher at Mitilene
primary school in the rural district of Manhica, about 80 kilometres (50
miles) from Maputo, told AFP.
“It is very important that the children learn in their native language
because it opens up the kid to learn more.”
Arguenha has taught at the government school for six years, but only last
year started teaching in Changana as part of a Food for Knowledge (FFK)
project funded by US aid and the local action group ADPP Mozambique.
Almost all teaching in Mozambique is in Portuguese — a legacy of the
country’s colonial era before independence in 1975 — but the majority of
Mozambicans speak one of more than 40 local languages.
The ministry of education told AFP that only 10 percent of children start
school knowing Portuguese but now around 1,300 primary schools out of 13,000
offer some bilingual teaching.
– ‘They express themselves’ –
In Arguenha’s class, only one child spoke Portuguese at the start of the
year.
But speaking in Changana, communication between teacher and pupils is fast
and lively, with children throwing their hands up high to answer questions.
“In Changana the students are more creative, they understand better and
they are not shy. They speak freely, they express themselves,” Arguenha said.
“When it is in Portuguese they are very shy, they are scared to speak and
hide themselves.”
The NGO Associacao Progresso, which works to improve literacy in the
country, has first-hand experience of how much children struggle when they
have to learn in a language they do not speak fluently.
“What often happens is that there is no communication because the teacher
speaks Portuguese, but the student doesn’t understand,” said Alcina Sitoe,
education officer at Associacao Progresso.
“If you don’t understand what is being taught, it is difficult to learn
anything.”
The Mozambican government has acknowledged the problem and in 2017
introduced reforms aimed at having classes taught in local languages,
although some parents often want their children to be taught exclusively in
Portuguese.
They later switch to the official language at about the age of 10, after
children have had time to learn it.
“We could see that these kids got better results than the kids who had
monolingual, Portuguese teaching,” Gina Guibanda, the government’s director
of primary education, told AFP.
“When the teacher in the class spoke a language that the kids had never
heard spoken, for the kid that was horrible.”
The UN education agency UNESCO has long encouraged mother tongue
instruction in primary education, with research showing that it is the
optimal language for literacy and learning.
In the developing world, children are more likely to enroll and succeed in
school. In particular, girls and rural children with less exposure to a
dominant language stay in school longer and repeat grades less often if they
learn in their native language.
– Specialist training needed –
Guibanda said training is the major problem holding local-language teaching
back.
Many rural schools have no trained teachers to give lessons in local
languages or any translated books.
Government policy is for teachers to have three years of training, but that
has been cut down to one year due to budget shortages and the nationwide
shortage of all teachers.
“It is not enough. Teachers graduate while still having a number of
problems,” said Francisca Samboca, education officer at Associacao Progresso.
“In reality, in all the rural areas these schools can only be found in the
district capitals.”
For Arguenha, the new approach was made easier because ADPP and FFK
provided specialist training and materials in both Changana and Ronga, the
other local language spoken around Maputo.
ADPP and FFK now work with 101 schools in four districts in Maputo
province, with more than 5,000 children taking part in the programme and more
than 67,000 books have been distributed.
But the difficulties for teachers switching between languages can not be
estimated.
“In the beginning it was a challenge,” said Arguenha. “I really needed to
concentrate when using the material and I needed to use vocabulary I didn’t
normally use.”
BSS/AFP/ARS/1652 hrs