The present paper investigates students' experiences of being multilingual. Qualitative data have been collected during observation, focus groups, interviews and text writing in a public primary school in rural Kenya. The informants are students in standards one, three and eight whose mother tongue is the indigenous language called Nandi, which all these students use at home and with friends. The school languages are Swahili and English, and the use of Nandi is forbidden in school except in mothertongue lessons in standards one to three. The aim of the study is to explore the students' experiences of being multilingual, and to analyse how the prohibition against the use of the mother tongue in school may influence their identity. The data are interpreted in the light of research and theory concerned with the influence of the colonisation of education in Africa and the effect of languages on identity. Results indicated that the students are proud of their vernacular language and culture, but also see the importance of being multilingual in a global world. The students agree with the prohibition against the use of their mother tongue in school, and understand that English and Swahili are important for education. The conclusion constitutes a critical contribution to add to earlier research about multilingualism and education in Africa.
The purpose of this review study was to conduct a thematic exploration of prior studies related to the transition between primary and secondary school. The aim of the paper was to discover (1) the extent of earlier research, (2) how earlier research thematises social and emotional issues, and (3) suggestions of those studies concerning how to improve schools. Searches were conducted across four international databases of peer-reviewed research to identify articles published in the last decade on the topic 'transition between primary and secondary school'. Articles related to social and emotional issues were further selected, and thematic analysis was conducted on the selected 29 articles to identify the topical focus. This review study draws attention to the importance of understanding challenges related to the transition between primary and secondary school. Overall, the analysed studies indicate that this is an important focus for educational research. Key issues related to support and wellbeing/bullying have emerged, which clarify the importance of further research in this field. The present study may also contribute to increasing awareness among policy makers and school leaders of the challenges related to the transition between primary and secondary school.
The connection between multilingualism and the school curriculum continues to engender debates on language preferences because of the potential to influence the amount of learning among learners. To understand language preferences among multilingual learners and their implications for the selection of the medium of instruction (MoI) in a multilingual country, data were collected through questionnaires and interviews among learners, teachers and head teachers in deep, rural Kenyan primary schools. These schools are located away from urban centres, with little or no basic infrastructure, hence the concept of “deep ruralness”. The participants were purposively sampled from among learners, teachers and head teachers to examine how learners’ affiliations with multilingualism could explain the preferred MoI, and the ways through which schools implement the use of an MoI in the curriculum. The findings show that Kiswahili and English were used as the MoI, even when the curriculum recommended indigenous languages and English. Moreover, learners’ multilingual affiliations and their spontaneous languages were their indigenous languages and Kiswahili. Based on these findings, we claim that the indigenous language, Kiswahili and English should be used as the languages of instruction in Kenyan schools.
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