Teaching a language that is not one’s home language

Teaching the next generation in today’s society can be stressful on its own. Doing so in a language that is not the learners’ home language can be even more daunting.

Zoë Vanzeeberg, a 23-year-old educator from Hoërskool Riebeeckrand in Randfontein spoke to the Herald about the challenges.

Also read: Learning and Teaching a Second Language

“I love to help others understand and speak English better, even though their home language might be Zulu, Xhosa, Tswana, Afrikaans etc,” said Zoë.

She added, “Your home language is the language that your mother speaks to you when you are still in her womb. When you are born, the first words that you learn are in your home language, therefore the first way that you can learn to express yourself effectively is in your home language. It’s your whole entire basis of understanding the world, so now you come into a classroom where everything is in a different language and yes, you’ve been exposed to other languages before on social media and television but you weren’t required to write or express it.”

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Zoë further explained that now you go into the classroom and you are required to express yourself in a language that has never been your foundation.

“It’s like having to explain your day in French and that’s how it is for a learner that’s not learning in their home language. We give them an essay and say describe your day and you must give adjectives about your day, describe metaphors but we expect all of this in a language that’s not their first language so they must take it the way they hear it in their mind; in their home language and then they have to convert it into English. Now the moment they convert it into English their vocabulary is limited so much more than it is and similarly when I’m explaining something to them, often I have to first put it into English and then I can respond to them.”

According to Zoë, these learners are doing Maths, Social Science and Geography in a language that is not their home language and everything needs to be translated.

“It may look like it goes fast but you lose so much information, ideas and expressions. So yes, it is quite difficult. It’s easier with some children and harder for others because no one is the same.”

She gave the following tips to help make learning in another language easier:

• Using different methods of assessment: Instead of only assessing learners one way where they can only write out their response, assess them in a way that they can act it out, speak it or draw the response because of the vocabulary limitations.
• Videos: If you cannot comprehend the knowledge through words, if you can see it, you can retain all that knowledge much easier.
• Role-playing: Acting out possesses.
• Group work: If you give learners a topic and you give an opportunity to discuss it in a group, they are more likely to go to their native language in the group. It’s an opportunity to go one-on-one, on the same level and break the information down for each other.