Abstract
Education contributes to the quality of life in many countries including those in sub-Saharan Africa. Individuals are not considered educated unless they are able to communicate their thoughts and ideas meaningfully to others. Language is the means by which this is done and once language becomes a barrier to learning, there’s a snowball effect that negatively impacts the quality of life. Problems and challenges are further exacerbated when there is unequal access to education either directly or indirectly and where inequitable practices prevail. This chapter discusses language-in-education in multilingual contexts and innovations that have been implemented in different sub-Saharan countries to enhance teaching and learning in these contexts and ultimately to improve the quality of life. The chapter utilises and elucidates multiple purposefully selected studies and projects, conducted in Uganda, South Africa, Nigeria and Ethiopia to illustrate the benefits of multilingualism and mother tongue/home language instruction in terms of educational outcomes and quality-of-life at the individual and systemic levels.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Barry, D. (2002). Language equity and assessment in south African education. Journal for Language Teaching, 36(1), 105–111.
Brock-Utne, B., & Holmarsdottir, H. B. (2004). Language policies and practices in Tanzania and South Africa: Problems and challenges. International Journal of Educational Development, 24, 67–83.
Cramm, J. M., Møller, V., & Nieboer, A. P. (2012). Individual- and neighbourhood-level indicators of subjective well-being in a small and poor eastern cape township: The effect of health, social capital, marital status, and income. Social Indicators Research, 105(3), 581–593.
Cummins, J. (2000). Language, power and pedagogy: Bilingual children in the crossfire. London: Multilingual Matters Ltd.
Cummins, J., & Swain, M. (1986). Bilingualism in education: Aspects of theory, research and policy. London: Longman.
Department of Education-SA. (DoE). (2007). Annual school survey 2007. Pretoria: Government Printers.
Guglielmi, R. S. (2008). Native language proficiency, english literacy, academic achievement, and occupational attainment in limited-english-proficient students: A latent growth modeling perspective. Journal of Educational Psychology, 100(2), 322–342.
Heugh, K. (2009). Contesting the monolingual practices of a bilingual to multilingual policy. English Teaching, 8(2), 96.
Heugh, K. (2013). An evaluation of the Literacy and Basic Education (LABE) Mother-Tongue Education (MTE) Project, UGANDA Final report.
Heugh, K. (2015). Multilingual education, knowledge systems & community participation: What we know from southern experience & research. Transatlantic Forum on Inclusive Early Years 8–10 July 2015 Washington, DC.
Heugh, K., & Mulumba, B. M. (2014). Implementing local languages medium education in the early primary curriculum of Ugandan schools: A literacy and adult basic education (LABE) intervention in six districts in North and North West Uganda. Kampala, Uganda: LABE. http://labeuganda.org/reports/LABE%20MTE%20Evaluation%202013%20Final %20SEPS%20jan.pdf
Hoadley, U. (2010). What do we know about teaching and learning in primary schools in South Africa? A review of the classroom-based research literature. Report for the grade 3 improvement project of the University of Stellenbosch. Cape Town: Western Cape Education Department.
Howie, S., Venter, E., & Van Staden, S. (2008). The effect of multilingual policies on performance and progression in Reading literacy in south African primary schools. Educational Research and Evaluation, 14(6), 551–560.
Howie, S., Van Staden, S., Tshele, M., Dowse, C., & Zimmerman, L. (2012). South African children’s reading literacy achievement: PIRLS 2011 summary report. Pretoria, South Africa.
Hugo, A. C. (2006). Overcoming barriers to learning through mediation. In M. M. Nieman & R. B. Monyai (Eds.), The educator as mediator of learning. Pretoria, South Africa: Van Schaik Publishers.
Jha, S. K. (2013). Multilingual education: An emerging threat to quality english education in Eastern Ethiopia. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 3(10), 1737.
Levin, T., & Shohamy, E. (2008). Achievement of immigrant students in mathematics and academic Hebrew in Israeli schools: A large-scale evaluation study. Studies in Educational Evaluation, 34(1), 1–14.
Mwololo. M. (2008). Are you fluent in your mother language? In Daily nation, living, February 20th, nation media group, Nairobi, 3.
Moller, V. (2013). South African quality of life trends over three decades, 1980–2010. Social Indicators Research, 113(3), 915–940.
Nieman, M. M. (2006). Using the language of learning and teaching (LoLT) appropriately during mediation of learning. In M. M. Nieman & R. B. Monyai (Eds.), The educator as mediator of learning. Pretoria, South Africa: Van Schaik Publishers.
Okal, B. O. (2014). Benefits of multilingualism in education. Universal Journal of Educational Research, 2, 223–229. https://doi.org/10.13189/ujer.2014.020304
Omidire, M. F. (2009). Investigation of dynamic assessment (DA) as a means of addressing the assessment dilemma of additional language learners. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis. Pretoria, South Africa: University of Pretoria.
Omidire, M. F., Bouwer, A. C., & Jordaan, J. C. (2011). Addressing the assessment dilemma of additional language learners through dynamic assessment. Perspectives in Education, 29(2), 48–60.
Spaull, N. (2015). Examining oral reading fluency among rural grade 5 English Second Language (ESL) learners in South Africa: An analysis of NEEDU 2013. South African Journal of Childhood Education, 5(2), 44–77.
UNESCO. (2003). Education in a multilingual world. Paris, France: UNESCO.
UNESCO. (2014). Multilingual education: Why is important? How do we implement it? Paris: UNESCO.
Van Avermaet, P. (2015). Functional multilingual learning. Presentation at TIFEY, 8 July, Washington, DC.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Omidire, M.F. (2019). Improving Quality of Life Through Teaching and Learning Innovations in Multilingual Contexts: Lessons from Sub-Saharan Africa. In: Eloff, I. (eds) Handbook of Quality of Life in African Societies. International Handbooks of Quality-of-Life. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15367-0_18
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15367-0_18
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-15366-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-15367-0
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)