Computers and African languages in education: an ICT tool for the promotion of multilingualism at a South African university: conversations
- Authors: Dalvit, Lorenzo , Murray, Sarah , Mini, Buyiswa , Terzoli, Alfredo , Zhao, Xiaogeng
- Date: 2005
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/428911 , vital:72545 , https://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC87340
- Description: This article describes a web-based application designed to provide meaningful access to the study of Computer Science to speakers of an African language who have limited experience of using English for ac-ademic purposes. Our research is focused upon students of Computer Skills in the Extended Studies Programme at Rhodes University who have studied English as a second language for the matriculation exam-ination. The intervention involves the cooperative production and shar-ing of multilingual support material in both English and the students' home languages. The article illustrates how the use of computers has the potential to solve some of the problems traditionally associated with the use of African languages as additional media of instruction in ter-tiary education (i.e. lack of terminology and resources in the African languages, stigma attached to their use, etc.). We maintain that learning about computers partly in their stronger language (i.e. their home lan-guage) could give students increased and more meaningful access to an educationally and economically empowering field of study.
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- Date Issued: 2005
Producing and sharing ICT-based knowledge through English and African languages at a South African university
- Authors: Terzoli, Alfredo , Dalvit, Lorenzo , Murray, Sarah , Mini, Buyiswa , Zhao, Xiaogeng
- Date: 2005
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/428531 , vital:72518 , https://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC37193
- Description: This article describes an intervention aimed at providing increased ac-cess to the study of information and communication technology (ICT) and computer literacy in Higher Education in South Africa. Our focus group is speakers of an African language from a previously disadvan-taged background in the extended studies programme at Rhodes Uni-versity. Preliminary investigation suggests that such students have dif-ficulties becoming computer literate partly because of their lack of Eng-lish proficiency. This might prevent them from furthering their studies of Computer Science (CS) up to the postgraduate level. Shifting away from the dominant approach to academic support in extended studies programmes in South Africa, in our research we focus primarily on the lexical rather than the discourse level. With the help of a web-based application, students collaboratively produce and share additional mate-rial in both English and the African languages. This allows them to inte-grate new concepts and knowledge about computers into their existing knowledge structures. With our intervention, we hope to improve the students' participation in the production and sharing of knowledge in the field of ICT.
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- Date Issued: 2005