Gibson Ferguson Language Planning and Education Edinburgh ...

194 Language Planning and Education
7.3.1.2 Transitioning between media
Remaining at the level of policy, another matter calls out for closer attention: the
transition from one language medium to another, a switch that in Africa usually takes
place at the end, or in the middle years, of primary education, and one that is
typically not as well managed as it might be. Reform efforts here could potentially
focus on (1) the timing of the switch, (2) the phasing of the switch or (3) preparation
for the switch.
As regards timing, there is a good educational case for delaying the switch to a
foreign language medium for one or two years so that in Botswana, for example,
English medium would be officially introduced in grade 5 or 6, not 4, and in
Tanzania in, say, year 3 of secondary school rather than year 1. The advantages of
such delay have already been made clear: it allows more time for the consolidation of
vital L1 literacy skills, facilitates subject content learning in the middle years of
primary school and enhances the status of indigenous languages. A further benefit is
that it may allow more efficient use to be made of the limited numbers of primary
school teachers with sufficient English language proficiency to teach effectively
through the language, a common problem being (and not just in Africa) that there
are too few such individuals to cover many primary grades (see Davies 1999a: 70).
Standing in the way of such a reform, however, looms the familiar obstacle of
public and political reluctance to embrace any circumscription of the educational
role of English. In which case greater weight may need to fall not on timing but on
the preparation for, and phasing of, the switch to English medium. Phasing refers to
the gradual implementation of the switch of medium over a number of years subject
by subject, starting first, as Clegg (1995: 16) suggests, with contextually supportive
subjects. The rationale, of course, is that this alleviates some of the stress many pupils
suffer when the switch is made more abruptly. Helpful here would be the devolution
of some decision-making powers to school level so that headteachers and their staff
can decide – in the light of locally available teaching resources – which subjects
should make the switch first.
As regards preparation, meanwhile, a variety of potentially helpful measures come
to mind. One is the reintroduction of the intensive crash courses of L2 instruction
that once immediately preceded the switch of medium – for example in the Tanzania
of the late 1960s and early 1970s, where there used to operate a six-week intensive
course based around Isaac’s textbook Learning Through Language. Of note, too,
though not necessarily feasible in the African context, is the former practice in
Malaysia of the so-called one year ‘remove’, whereby pupils moving from Tamil or
Chinese medium primary schools to a Bahasa Malaysia medium secondary school
would undergo a one-year period of intensive language preparation in a ‘remove’
class.
7.3.1.3 Curriculum innovation
Another potentially helpful measure might be the introduction, or reintroduction