Browsing by Author "Matariro, Mariyeni"

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    Bridging the gap: literacy clubs for underperforming grade 8 and 9 learners in a township school
    (2017) Matariro, Mariyeni
    Using English as a medium of instruction or the Language of Learning and Teaching (LoLT) can be a very difficult task especially if the children do not speak the language and are multilingual. It affects reading, writing and oral language skills. This study seeks to examine the impact of exposing underperforming grade 8 and 9 learners of English to a Literacy Club. The study is a follow up of the study that was done in 2013. The main difference between the current study and the previous study is that, participants in the first study were already readers and volunteered to join the Literacy Club. Although school rules were relaxed, only English was used to discuss the read texts. In the current study, because I was working with weak readers, learners who have been identified as at risk of failing and had all been invited to join the Literacy Club as a form of language enrichment programme, the participants will be allowed to use all the linguistic skills at their disposal for both discussion of texts and reflecting in their journals. This is based on the premise that being multilingual should not be viewed as a barrier but a resource for learning. Underpinned by the socio-cultural approach to learning and drawing intensively from different theoretical views of language learning and learning to read, a case of 16 learners in grade 8 and 9 participated in this study. The study adopted a qualitative approach where a number of methods were used for the purposes of data collection. The study discovered that Literacy Clubs are a good vehicle to impart reading skills as they motivate learners to read. Literacy Clubs also have a positive impact on attainment in language tests. The study also discovered that allowing learners to use all the linguistic repertoires available to them boosts their confidence to talk about the literature they have read and improves the quality of their discussions. The study recommended that reading should be allocated time within normal school hours for each grade, children should be given an opportunity to write reading journals which should be marked and commented on by the teacher to encourage free writing and develop writing skills, the context of the school should be considered when deciding on the language policy to adopt and lastly but most importantly, translanguaging should be seriously considered as a pedagogical tool when teaching a second language.
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    Investigation of complex multilingual practices of learners and teachers in a Johannesburg school
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023-09) Matariro, Mariyeni; Makalela, Leketi
    This thesis investigates the experiences and affordances of using more than two languages for literacy development for Grade 8 learners in a Johannesburg multilingual school. It investigates how languages are used in the teaching and learning of multilingual senior phase learners and what this affords them in the development of literacy in selected subjects. Underpinned by the sociolinguistic view of literacy the study adopted translanguaging and Ubuntu translanguaging as both conceptual and theoretical frameworks. A Johannesburg high school was purposefully chosen as the research site. Adopting an ethnographic case study design a single class was purposefully chosen to participate in this study. Over a period of 16 weeks data was collected in the form of observations, semi structured interviews, metacognitive reflections, focus group discussions and mediated translanguaging. Three teachers who taught this class, Natural Sciences, English, and Social Sciences also took part in this study. Data was collected using both quantitative and qualitative methods. The collected data was analysed using both quantitative and qualitative approaches. In analyzing the collected data, the thesis demonstrated a huge mismatch between the learner’s language practices and the ways they are expected to use language in the school setting. The hegemony of the English language is overpowering even though the context is a rich multilingual space among both the teachers and the learners. This was evident in classroom language use, school notices, classroom display charts and the absence of any other language except English and very little Afrikaans within the school. Besides this, teacher practices indicated a huge monolingual bias which favors English even though both learners and teachers are fluent in the same languages that are not languages of the school. The study also demystifies the myth that learners do not want to be associated or to learn in their own languages. This cohort of learners who participated in this study demanded the use of their languages within the school for teaching and learning. However, for as much as the learners would want their languages included, they are not familiar with the orthography of the languages and as a result they cannot read or write in those languages. The study also found that translanguaging and UT are a good starting point for teaching learners with complex linguistic profiles. However, besides the work on UT there is very little translanguaging work that is informed by research carried out in Africa. Consequently, most translanguaging work refers to the use of two languages, a Western view that does not hold in this context. The study gravitates from this weak view of translanguaging and calls for further research for translanguaging work, which delves deeper into the realities of African contexts to understand and appreciate the pervasiveness of multilingualism in this context and leverage on it as a resource for teaching and learning.