Teaching in linguistically diverse classrooms: difficulties in the implementation of the language-in-education policy in multilingual Kenyan primary school classrooms

Nyaga, Susan; Anthonissen, Christine

doi:10.1080/03057925.2012.707457

Cited by 23 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…In concurrence with the existing literature, this research found that the difficulties involved in teaching multilingual children could be overcome if digital technologies and OER could be absorbed into primary school classrooms (Thakrar, Zinn & Wolfenden, 2009;Wolfenden, Buckler, & Keraro, 2012) and if new educational policies endorsed mother tongue literacy (Nyaga & Anthonissen, 2012).…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 77%

Open Educational Resources: Challenges and Opportunities in Indian Primary Education

Ganapathi

2018

IRRODL

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Education is a fundamental human right, yet one fifth of the world’s population lives with poor literacy. India is home to the largest number of illiterate people, with infrastructural, cultural, and socio-economic factors hindering equitable access to quality education. Due to the rapidly growing technology and Internet usage in the country, open educational resources (OER) are increasingly being used as a vital tool to help transcend barriers to child literacy, also aiding in educational attainment. While an array of scholarly works provides evidence of the potential in OER to influence higher education outcomes in developing nations, academic analysis of their impact on primary level education attainment has been minimal. This paper retrieve lessons from three children’s content providing organizations to understand the opportunities and challenges of OER in primary-level education in developing nations with similar cultural, infrastructural, and socio-economic issues. While the findings of this study suggest that the use of OER allows for greater distribution and scale across different cultural and linguistic settings, particularly in rural and remote regions, they also warn against the adaptation and pedagogical barriers of OER into societies where traditional modes of education are established and trusted.

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Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 77%

Open Educational Resources: Challenges and Opportunities in Indian Primary Education

Ganapathi

2018

IRRODL

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“…Sixty‐nine languages are spoken in Kenya, with many children speaking three or more of those languages (Ethnologue, ). Kiswahili is a lingua franca and frequently a second language (L2) for Kenyan children, while English – where it is spoken at all – is usually a third or fourth language (Nyaga & Anthonissen, ; Uwezo Kenya, ). Yet, English is the predominant language of instruction in Kenyan primary schools.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Oral reading fluency and comprehension in Kenya: reading acquisition in a multilingual environment

Piper¹,

Schroeder²,

Trudell³

2015

Journal Research in Reading

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Reading research has shown that variable relationships exist between measures of oral reading fluency and reading comprehension, depending on whether the language of the text is the reader's first language or an additional language. This paper explores this phenomenon, using reading assessment data for 2,000 Kenyan children in two or three languages: English, Kiswahili and one of two mother tongues, Dholuo or Gikuyu. The assessment data allowed us to compare reading and comprehension rates across languages. The data indicated that many children could read English words more easily than words in Kiswahili or their mother tongue; nevertheless, their reading comprehension was significantly lower in English than in Kiswahili, Dholuo or Gikuyu. The paper concludes that emphasising English reading fluency is an inefficient route to gaining reading comprehension skills because pupils are actually attaining minimal oral reading fluency in English and only modest comprehension skills in their own languages. The evidence also demonstrates that Kenya's national language policy of mother tongue as a medium of instruction in the early primary grades is consistently ignored in practice.

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“…The research found that the difficulties involved in teaching children from multilingual backgrounds could be overcome if new educational policies endorsed mother tongue literacy (Nyaga & Anthonissen, 2012) and if digital technologies and OERs could be absorbed into classroom-teaching (Thakrar, Zinn & Wolfenden, 2009;Wolfenden, Buckler and Keraro, 2012). Although schools have slowly started to incorporate OERs into classroom teaching (Hennessy, Haßler & Hofmann, 2016;Marcus-Quinn, 2016), there are a number of constraints and oppositions, mainly because OERs are seen as contesting the traditional education system as well as the commercial textbook publishers, as in the case of Poland (Kowalski, 2008;Białecki, Jakubowski & Wiśniewski, 2017).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Scholars observe that those from a culturally and linguistically diverse setting face significant difficulties in learning. This is especially the case of children whose mother tongue usually differs from his or her school's teaching medium, which is in the language of the state (Nyaga & Anthonissen, 2012;Asfaha et al, 2009 childrens' transition to another medium of instruction (Nyaga & Anthonissen, 2012). With mother tongue literacy, knowledge acquisition the learning of other languages is facilitated (Cummins, 2000;Pattanayak, 1990;Jhingran, 2005;MacKenzie, 2009).…”

Section: Language and Literacymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The chapter then reviews the scholarly works on OERs in India, in reference to their role in other countries. Several studies underline the significance of mother tongue literacy development (Larson & Murray, 2008;Nyaga & Anthonissen, 2012;Asfaha, Beckman, Kurvers & Kroon, 2009) in multilingual settings (Cobo, 2013;Torres, 2013;Tilak, 2007;Nambissan, 2010), endorsing their capacity in improving educational attainment or completion and progress (Sanchez, 2013;Okedara & Okedara, 1992;Kamanda, 2002). Although limited, there is also some interesting discussion around the topic of user-created OERs, which are becoming more and more common (Mallapradaga, Grewal & Lilien, 2012;Pitt, Watson, Berthon, Wynn & Zinkhan, 2006;Di Benedetto, 2014;Hodgkinson-Williams & Paskevicius, 2012), yet greatly contested for their quality (Ingawale, Dutta, Roy, & Seetharaman, 2013).…”

Section: Thesis Organizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Role of Open Educational Resources (OERs) in Primary Education in Developing Nations: A Case Study of India

Ganapathi¹

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This research aims to identify how open educational resources (OERs) can contribute towards primary education, and what role they might play in increasing childhood literacy in particular, which has been identified as a prime component in ensuring educational attainment in primary school. Literature in the area largely addresses OERs and their potential to widen participation in tertiary education with a focus on developed nations, with little discussion about how OERs can be utilized in primary education. This thesis is particularly interested in the role OERs might play in primary education in developing nations where a range of challenges contribute to the low levels of literacy. In nations like India and South Africa, which are the locations of the case study organizations selected for this research, decentralized rural populations, combined with high levels of poverty, child labor and low levels of literacy and awareness cause poor attendance and access to schools. This research suggests that OERs aimed at developing literacy in primary school-aged children can overcome the distribution and access issues that contribute to low attendance and engagement with education in these nations. OERs have the capacity to bypass low levels of educational infrastructure by distributing high quality resources online in low definition formats suitable for downloading and under open licenses on platforms suitable for users to repackage, translate and re-purpose according to their particular need or audience. While there are a range of sustainability challenges for organizations with a social mission to use OERs to increase the equity and access of educational materials, these organizations have found innovative solutions taken from other online successes such as gaming and social media. Making use of volunteers and users in a community of practice to ensure that content is translated, quality is maintained and there is volume on their sites has some risks but also enables the maintenance of an open repository of materials for use, re-use, adaptation and sharing. This thesis contributes to the existing literature by shedding light into understanding these challenges from the experiences and perspectives of three case study organizations that provide OERs for children.

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Teaching in linguistically diverse classrooms: difficulties in the implementation of the language-in-education policy in multilingual Kenyan primary school classrooms

Cited by 23 publications

References 9 publications

Open Educational Resources: Challenges and Opportunities in Indian Primary Education

Open Educational Resources: Challenges and Opportunities in Indian Primary Education

Oral reading fluency and comprehension in Kenya: reading acquisition in a multilingual environment

The Role of Open Educational Resources (OERs) in Primary Education in Developing Nations: A Case Study of India

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