Benefits and Challenges in Implementing Translanguaging in Sub-Saharan Primary Schools

Abstract

The teaching of language and literacy in the African countries has been characterised by the use of an official language which is not indigenous. Many southern African countries use English language as an official language while selected local languages are also used to teach in the schools. Zambia has been good at policy formulation, yet implementation has been a setback. The Educating Our Future policy documents gives the advantages of using local languages in the teaching and learning in the Zambian schools, yet this never materialised in implementation. The reason lies in the Zambian constitution which recognises seven languages as languages to be used in the regions for teaching and learning alongside English language. In south Africa, the country decentralised the language choice to the local councils hence regions have many languages being used as official languages alongside the regional languages. this is also coming into play in Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe. The benefits have been seen to outweigh the rigid monolingual policies. These include local language maintenance, cultural preservation and language development amongst the minority languages which Zambia has to learn from. This has given rise to studies which have investigated benefits and challenges in the local language use and integration in the teaching of linguistic diverse communities. This paper synthesises the different challenges from different countries and their unique benefitsso that a general conclusion is drawn on how the African schools are supposed to benefit from the studies conducted in the region. The study was a desk review which explored four articlesthat looked at benefits and challenges of translanguaging from sub-Saharan Africa.