Far fewer Americans speak a second language than in most other developed countries – and the problem starts in the classroom.
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Whether it's due to native language loss or unsupported high school curricula, the lack of bilingualism in the US is notable. Why can't more Americans speak another language? How should that change?
Language and herbs travel thanks to the Rastafarian community around Cape Town.
David Harrison/Mail & Guardian
Ethical engagement in multilingual communication is about mutual respect. More importantly, it's about shaping a shared future through face-to-face communication.
Schools and universities in post-colonial contexts still operate within the logic of coloniality. This is starkly illustrated by their language policies.
European collaboration: great in theory, exclusionary in practice.
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Traditional African stories often tackle big, occasionally scary and serious themes. This is even true in children's stories – though there's plenty of room for silly fun, too.
Gabriel Kenny, aged five, gets to grips with Mandarin characters as part of a US school program.
Lucy Nicholson/Reuters
There is a new potential coloniser on South Africa's linguistic block. From 2016, Mandarin will be taught in schools – and this will see African languages bumped even further down the pecking order.
English is Uganda’s official language - but wouldn’t it make sense to adopt a few more along with it?
Joshua Wanyama/Africa Knows
The stories of and attitudes to three particular languages – English, Swahili and Luganda – provide an interesting starting point for a debate around Uganda's language policy.
Translating notes into ‘deep’ or ‘high’ versions of languages isn’t very useful for young students who prefer vernacular, colloquial ways of speaking.
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Bernie Millar, Cape Peninsula University of Technology
There is little value in translating academic texts into "high" or "deep" versions of African languages. Most students read and speak their mother tongues in a far more colloquial fashion.
Ugandan children are meant to learn in local mother tongues for their first three years of primary school.
EPA/Stephen Morrison
In Uganda, private schools are simply ignoring a policy that calls for pupils to learn in a mother tongue rather than in English for the first three years of their education.
Being able to learn science in a number of languages helps children to develop an understanding of concepts - like the robotics used to build this dinosaur.
David Mercado/Reuters
Using more than one language when teaching and learning science in schools can greatly enhance concept development. This in fact goes to the heart of science.
Xhosa women celebrate in Qunu in the Eastern Cape. It is time for African languages and cultures to dominate at the continent’s universities.
Antony Kaminju/Reuters
There are now more than 1.1 million children in our schools whose first language “is known or believed to be other than English” according to the latest government figures. This confirms a continuous upwards…
