The Multivoices of Kenyan Primary School Children Learning to Read and Write

Esther Mukewa Lisanza

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9783030381097
• eBook ISBN:
  9783030381103
• Topic: Filología
• Subtopic: Enseñanza de idiomas

This book provides a rich and nuanced examination of children learning to read and write a second language in primary schools in Kenya, taught by teachers who themselves have often learned English as a second or third language. The author uses two case studies, of an urban and a rural school, to explore how different socioeconomic and cultural contexts can affect the enactment of language policies and their effect on literacy. This book contributes a unique perspective to studies in language and literacy education due to its distinctive exploration of young children learning to read and write in the English language in Kenya, and it will be of particular interest to students and scholars of applied linguistics, language education, bilingualism and language policy.

© The Author(s) 2020

E. M. LisanzaThe Multivoices of Kenyan Primary School Children Learning to Read and Writehttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38110-3_1

Begin Abstract

1. Introduction

Esther Mukewa Lisanza¹

(1)

Department of African Studies, Howard University, Washington, DC, USA

Esther Mukewa Lisanza

Keywords

African childrenSociocultural theoryDialogic theoryEthnographic case studyKenyaOminde Commission

End Abstract

Kalu:

That is Mount Everest.

Jabali:

No! That’s Mount Kenya. Hiyo si (That’s not) Mount Everest.

Kalu:

Hiyo ni (That’s) Mount Everest.

The above exchange is between two grade two children in Kenya. The children are rolling two old car wheels at the school’s playground and on the horizon the clouds have cleared, and they are able to see some mountain ranges. They start figuring out which are those mountain ranges. Kalu thinks that must be the tallest mountain on earth, Mount Everest. While Jabali thinks it must be the tallest mountain in Kenya, Mount Kenya. In their talk they make use of the two languages they speak: Swahili and English. As these two children and their peers across the nation learn to read and write, bilingualism or multilingualism or translanguaging is the norm in their daily interactions despite the imposed monolingual education policies which were set in motion during colonial era.

Many studies have been done on language and literacy development in other parts of the world (e.g., Cazden, 2001; Clay, 1975; Dyson, 1989, 2003; Sahni, 2001; Samway, 2006; Watts, 1995); however, there is paucity of research focusing on African children learning to read and write. Therefore, a desire for an African-focused book on children learning to read and write a second language led to this book. The book covers both official (teacher-controlled) and “unofficial” (children-controlled ) (Dyson, 1989, 2003) (see the opening quote) curricula of African children. The book is based on two ethnographic case studies. One case study was done in an urban primary school while the other was done in a rural primary school. Both schools are located in Kenya. The chapters in the book provide a means to examine the interplay between the official national language policy and local (school) language policies and how these policies are enacted in the classroom. The chapters also explore the interplay between the official curriculum and unofficial curriculum. Thus, through the analysis of the two case studies, which are situated in diverse sociocultural and socioeconomic sites, the project has generated: (1) what reading and writing may mean for children; (2) variations in the relationship between official and unofficial writing and reading practices; (3) implications of using a first or a second language as medium of instruction for children, teachers and other stakeholders.

To understand the sociolinguistic and education situation in Kenya within which this project is situated, it is important to appreciate the sociopolitical processes which have been played out in Kenya’s history and the influence that these processes have had on what languages are to be taught in Kenyan schools and how these languages would be taught. Also, it will be important to appreciate the physical and social contexts of both schools and the impact that these contexts have had on language learning in both schools. To do this, I will briefly discuss the education language policy during colonial and postcolonial Kenya. This will be followed by a discussion of the physical and social contexts of both schools. In addition, I will discuss the sociocultural (i.e., Vygotskian) and dialogic (i.e., Bakhtinian) theoretical frameworks which informed my data collection and analysis. Then, I will briefly discuss the research design. Moreover, I will engage with the related scholarship in early childhood literacy and second language studies, and bilingualism/multilingualism. Finally, I will give an outline of the remaining chapters in the book.

Language and Education Situation in Kenya

Throughout the colonial era pupils in Kenyan primary schools were taught in their first languages (L1) in grades one to four; during these grades, English was taught as a subject for about two or three years in African and Asian heritage schools, and thereafter it became a language of instruction from grade five onward (Sifuna, 1980). By the middle of the 1950s, there was growing dissatisfaction about the poor performance of African and Asian children in Kenya’s national examinations which were written in English compared to their European counterparts who did the same examinations (Sifuna, 1980). The poor performance was blamed on the use of L1 as language of instruction for the African and Asian children (Muthwii, 2002). It is important to note that even though the first languages were mandated to play the role of languages of instruction, the African languages in particular were under resourced. For example, the literacy and other educational materials were very few, if any, compared to the tons of materials in English language. Therefore, in 1961, the colonial government, in response to the poor performance in Asian schools, implemented English as a language of instruction from grade one in Asian schools which spread very fast to all primary schools in Kenya including African schools (Mbaabu, 1996). So, for the remainder of the colonial period the language of instruction in all Kenyan schools was English.

After independence in 1963, the colonial language policy was retained in postcolonial Kenya. When the first postcolonial Education Commission (i.e., the Ominde Commission) was appointed in 1964, it endorsed the English-only policy for the whole nation, from grade one onward (Republic of Kenya, 1964). This policy was revised in 1976 by the second postcolonial Education Commission (i.e., the Gachathi Report) which recommended that the predominant language of the school’s “catchment area” (i.e., the surrounding community) should be the language of instruction in grades one to three, and English should be the language of instruction from grade four onward for the entire nation (Republic of Kenya, 1976). This is still the operating language policy in Kenyan schools today (Republic of Kenya, 1999). English is the only official language of instruction from grade four and Swahili, the national and co-official language in the country, is compulsory and examinable from grade one. Swahili is the only indigenous language which is examinable in primary and secondary schools throughout the country. All the other indigenous languages are not examined. Therefore, Swahili and other indigenous languages continue to play a bridging role between home and school. Subtractive bilingualism is a common phenomenon in Kenyan schools. English voice thrives right from grade one to the end of the education cycle (Lisanza, 2011). In Kenya English is the authoritative voice (discourse ) (Bakhtin, 1981). Bakhtin states that:

The authoritative word demands that we acknowledge it, that we make it our own; it binds us, quite independent of any power it might have to persuade us internally; we encounter it with its authority already fused to it. The authoritative word is located in a distance zone, organically connected with a past that is felt to be hierarchically higher. (p. 342)

It appears that Bakhtin had the Kenyan case in his mind. The English language demands that Kenyans acknowledge it in all schools and other domains in the society to make it their own (Lisanza, 2011). It has socioeconomic power fused in it. Therefore, English is “the language” (Thiong’o, 1986, p. 11) in Kenya. This is the kind of ideological context in which Kenyan schools operate. English is superior compared to the indigenous languages. Due to this ideology, English language flourishes as the privileged voice in all Kenyan classrooms whether in urban or rural areas (Lisanza, 2011). It is in this ideological context that this project is situated. In the chapters to come we will see how the language policies which were initiated during colonial time impact the teaching and learning in the two case studies. Next, I will give a glimpse of the physical and social contexts of the two schools...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• 1. Introduction
• 2. The Enactment of Official Language Policies in Mutituni and Nyika Primary Schools: Their Impact on Learning
• 3. The Enacted English Reading Curriculum
• 4. The Enacted Writing Curriculum
• 5. The Unofficial Practices: What Are the Children Telling Us?
• 6. Enacting Children’s Multiple Voices: Implications for Theory, Policy and Pedagogy
• Back Matter