An analysis of teacher’s language mixing practices in selected grade three classes of Mongu district of Zambia.
Date
2025
Authors
Songiso, Christabel
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
The University of Zambia
Abstract
Language mixing is a practice of using two or more languages within a sentence or between sentences in a conversation. Despite language mixing practices being common in our communities, we do not know how primary school teachers use these practices during their class lesson since regional languages are currently used as medium of instruction from Grade 1 to Grade 4 bearing in mind that learners come from different language
backgrounds. Therefore, the main purpose of this study was to analyze teacher’s language mixing practices in Grade three classes of selected multilingual primary schools in Mongu district, western province. The objectives were four and these include (1) To establish language mixing practices in multilingual classes among teachers and learners in selected primary schools of Mongu District, (2) To determine when language mixing takes place in multilingual classes among teachers and learners, (3) To analyze languages mixing practices outside the classroom among teachers and learners and lastly (4) To ascertain the challenges and benefits of language mixing practices. The study applied a purposive sampling of multilingual primary schools was used eliminating all monolingual and bilingual primary schools from this research study. The study used constructivism research
paradigm which supports the qualitative approach. Data was collected through lesson observation, face to face interviews and observation checklist. The sample size will be 40 participants comprising 16 Grade 3 teachers and 24 pupils, from 4 different Primary schools (4 teachers and 6 pupils from each selected multilingual primary school. The findings were that (i) both teachers and learners mixed languages both inside and outside the classroom, (ii) teachers and learners both mixed languages when they came in contact with non-speakers of the language of instruction, (iii) teachers mixed languages outside the classroom than learners and finally the findings also revealed that (iv) language mixing practices are considered time consuming. The study recommended (1) the revision of the language in education policy to accommodate language mixing practices in primary
schools (2) School administration and primary school teachers to be having workshops once in a while discussing how best they can teach literacy in primary schools (3) Ministry of Education to reconsider introducing literacy courses on language mixing practices at teacher training institutions and reinforce the competence in the curricular and lastly, (4) More primary school teachers to be recruited in order to balance the abnormal teacherpupil ratio.
Description
Thesis of Master of Education in Literacy Language and Applied Linguistics.