The Medium of Instruction in Zambian Primary Schools
type: CreativeWork
description: Literature was reviewed which looked at the Educational Psycholinguistic, Psycho-social and Cultural effects of the use of heterogeneous student populations' foreign language as a medium of instruction. The study set out to deal with two basic issues:should English be the medium of instruction immediately a child enters school in Zambia or should the child initially be taughtin a language he is familiar with for the first three to four years before a switchover is nade to English? From each of the two types of Primary Schools (i.e. Underprivileged and Privileged)were sampled 40 (20 males and 20 females) Bemba speaking subjects from grades 5 and 6, making up a total of 80 subjects for the entire study. To illuminate the problem of investigation, achievement tests, attitude and factual information questionnaires and observational schedules were used to which appropriate statistical tools were applied.The results showed that teachers in privileged schools were observed to use significantly more English when addressing their pupils than in underprivileged schools both in English lessons and in Maths lessons.Pupils in privileged schools also used more English when addressing their teachers than those in underprivileged schools, but only in English lessons. Pupils' choice of language for addressing each other in class did not differ across the two types of schools. A comparison of the two groups of pupils on various tests showed privileged school pupils score significantly higher on tests of English Comprehension, but significantly lower on tests of Bemba Comprehension and of Comprehension of Bemba proverbs. Pupils in underprivileged schools scored significantly higher than those in privileged schools on tests of English Reading, English Writing and Bemba Writing. No significant difference was found between the two groups on a test of Bemba Heading. Skills in the two languages were only negligibly correlated. A test of Self-Esteem in relation to their usage of their verna…
abstract: Literature was reviewed which looked at the Educational Psycholinguistic, Psycho-social and Cultural effects of the use of heterogeneous student populations' foreign language as a medium of instruction. The study set out to deal with two basic issues:should English be the medium of instruction immediately a child enters school in Zambia or should the child initially be taughtin a language he is familiar with for the first three to four years before a switchover is nade to English? From each of the two types of Primary Schools (i.e. Underprivileged and Privileged)were sampled 40 (20 males and 20 females) Bemba speaking subjects from grades 5 and 6, making up a total of 80 subjects for the entire study. To illuminate the problem of investigation, achievement tests, attitude and factual information questionnaires and observational schedules were used to which appropriate statistical tools were applied.The results showed that teachers in privileged schools were observed to use significantly more English when addressing their pupils than in underprivileged schools both in English lessons and in Maths lessons.Pupils in privileged schools also used more English when addressing their teachers than those in underprivileged schools, but only in English lessons. Pupils' choice of language for addressing each other in class did not differ across the two types of schools. A comparison of the two groups of pupils on various tests showed privileged school pupils score significantly higher on tests of English Comprehension, but significantly lower on tests of Bemba Comprehension and of Comprehension of Bemba proverbs. Pupils in underprivileged schools scored significantly higher than those in privileged schools on tests of English Reading, English Writing and Bemba Writing. No significant difference was found between the two groups on a test of Bemba Heading. Skills in the two languages were only negligibly correlated. A test of Self-Esteem in relation to their usage of their verna…
author: Sekeleti, Clayton M
language: en
keywords: Language and languages--Zambia
date published: 2011-06-21
date modified: 2026-07-27T22:06:26Z
provider: University of Zambia
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Zambia