The paper demonstrates how some of the dictionaries written in less documented languages, hardly meet the expectations of target users, due to some of the methods used in collecting and arranging meanings of words. The paper, therefore, explains the semantico-syntactic method of eliciting multiple conceptual meanings of words and the alphasyntactico-semantic mode of their arrangement in dictionary making. It concludes by showing how the two methods can lead to compilation of good dictionaries in less documented languages and how the dictionaries would be of benefit to the target users.

This paper discussed Cross-Linguistic Transfer (CLT) and Language Proficiency in multilingual education in general and highlighted samples of CLT in Burundi as the existing literature reveals. As there exist CLT on all linguistic levels, this discussion has provided examples of phonological (including phonetics), lexical and semantic, and syntactic transfer. It has been realized that there exist a limited number of publications related to CLT among languages studied in the multilingual education system of Burundi. Yet analyses of CLT would supply interesting samples of linguistic features that are likely to be transferred. This would be useful for both language curriculum designers and language policymakers in deciding which language features to supply in language curriculum materials. Furthermore, teachers would find ways of helping learners to improve their language proficiency based on samples of CLT analysis.

From 1967 to 2012, Burundi had a formal system of education referred to, today, as old system. This system had initially three languages in education before Swahili was added in 2006. Since 2013, Burundi has a new educational system with four languages in education. This paper aimed to discuss the so called old education system of Burundi as far as languages in education are concerned. It explores issues related to the Burundian old multilingual educational system. Content materials designed by policy makers for languages of instruction and languages taught as subjects have provided substance for the discussion. Furthermore, documents including language education policy documents, content materials and the existing literature were consulted and analysed through content analysis methods. The way the languages were presented and introduced to learners through the content materials was discussed to understand underlying policy makers’ philosophy about how multilingual education should be carried out to achieve expected multilingual competence in the languages involved. It was realised that the system privileged separation of languages to avoid language transfer in order to achieve expected language competence. Crosslinguistic Transfer (interference) was considered to be a hindrance to language competence development and it was to be avoided both through the content materials and the teaching methods during classroom practices.

The present paper reports on how the MAIN instrument was adapted to Luganda, a Bantu language spoken in Uganda, for assessing the narrative skills of Luganda-speaking children. The adaptation involved recommendations for cultural adaptations of the picture sets and translation of the manual into Luganda. The paper also describes the first (pilot) study using the Luganda MAIN, and how the bureaucratic, linguistic, and technical challenges along the way were dealt with. In addition, preliminary results are reported and discussed, followed by some conclusions and suggestions for future research.