For many people from Western countries it is hard to imagine. “The average reading level of African children in their mother tongue and in English is concerningly low,” Stoffelsma explains. “That is problematic because there is clear evidence that high quality education is beneficial to the economic development of a country. Many former British colonies have adopted English as the official language of education and parliament. That means it is important to ensure that children learn the English language well. In general, private schools achieve high quality language teaching, but problems often arise at state primary schools.”
No books in native language
Stoffelsma sees an important reason for this. Through the ‘Reading Beyond Borders’ project, she investigates mother tongue and English reading skills of primary school children in Ghana, South Africa and Hong Kong. She says: “Many primary school children in non-Western countries are taught in English, but speak a different language at home. For them, reading comprehension in English is often difficult.” In her research, she is therefore studying which factors, like mother tongue knowledge and knowledge of vocabulary, predict the English reading skills of these children, and how to use this knowledge to develop new teaching and learning methods.
“A commonly used system is that primary school children are taught in their mother tongue in the first three years of primary school, based on the idea that it’s easier to learn a second language when you have first mastered your mother tongue,” she explains. “At senior school level, which is equivalent to grade 5 to 8 in the Netherlands, the language of instruction is English. However, in practice we find that many primary school children can barely read in their mother tongue.”
She uses Ghana as an example. “At Ghanaian state primary schools where I’m conducting my research, there are no books available in the learners’ mother tongue. The government has stopped publishing those books because they feel that everyone should learn English. Consequently, nearly thirty percent of the children in grade 7 taking part in this research are unable to read in their mother tongue and fifteen percent can’t read in English. Furthermore, the majority doesn’t understand texts in English because they don’t have sufficient English vocabulary knowledge.”
Learning a second language
Stoffelsma emphasises that factors like reading skills, vocabulary knowledge and knowledge of word structures in a person’s mother tongue can predict the learning of a second language. “But it also depends on how similar those languages are,” she explains. “The mother tongue languages that I investigate in my research, Akan (Ghana), Zulu (South Africa) and Cantonese (Hong Kong), are very different from English in terms of structure, writing system and grammar. No previous research has been done into these language combinations. The question which we are ultimately aiming to answer is: Does it matter if your mother tongue is Akan, Zulu or Cantonese if you want to read well in English?”
Development of learning method
Based on the insights obtained from their research, Stoffelsma and her project colleagues are currently developing a new series of storybooks for children in Ghana. “We are developing bilingual storybooks, in which the same story is first presented in the mother tongue, and thereafter in English. The aim is that the children read these stories and process their content through exercises focusing on vocabulary and word structures. The stories are being written by students from the University of Cape Coast and will be tested in the classrooms by teachers at four schools in November. On a very small scale, these books could help resolve the lack of texts in mother tongue whilst supporting the development of English vocabulary and reading skills at the same time. We would also like to show teachers how to develop additional free course materials by recycling cardboard, bottles and cans.”
But Stoffelsma, who lived in Mozambique and Zimbabwe for eight years, does not think that a new teaching method as a solution alone is sufficient. She points to socio-cultural and economic factors which also have a major influence on learning.
“In Ghana, many parents and politicians don’t agree with schools including mother tongue education in the curriculum. They argue that children will only get a well-paid job later in life if they learn English as early as possible. Last year, I visited a school in South Africa which had eighty children in a class but only one teacher. That’s unimaginable here in the Netherlands. Poverty also means that many children go to school hungry, making it hard to learn anything. It is important that the international scientific community develops more interest in multilingualism and language education in Africa, because the outcomes of this research can really benefit the people living there. The academic community here mustn’t shut their eyes to that.”