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Sociolinguistic research in Kenya: an inquiry into problems involved in the teaching of swahili1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

Thomas P. Gorman
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Extract

One of the purposes of the Survey of Language Use and Language Teaching in Kenya, which Professor Whiteley directed, was to gather information that might help to clarify the nature of the problems faced by language teachers. One of my concerns in the Survey was to investigate problems that were encountered in the teaching of Swahili at secondary level; and in this paper I would like to outline and discuss some of the information obtained, regarding such problems and the factors to which they can be attributed.

Type
Articles
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 37 , Issue 1 , February 1974 , pp. 76 - 81
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1974

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References

2 I have described the methods used to obtain the information elsewhere, cf. Gorman, T. P., ‘Socio-linguistic implications of a choice of media of instruction’, in Whiteley, W. H. (ed.), Language use and social eliange, London, 1971, 198–220Google Scholar; also ch. xiii in W. H. Whiteley (ed.), Language in Kenya, in press.

3 We were primarily concerned with speakers of Kikuyu, Luo, ‘Kalenjin’, Kamba, Luyia, Gusii, Mern, and the Mijikenda group of languages. Over 80% of the population of Kenya belong to one of these groups.

4 Self-report measures have, as is apparent, a number of inherent disadvantages and cannot be taken independently as evidence of degrees of competence in language skills. However, when accompanied by objective tests of attainment, as these were, they can help to provide ancillary evidence of such competence. I have elsewhere cited evidence to show that the degree of correlation between scores on teats of attainment in Swahili and self-report ratings proved to be highly significant.

5 Members of the four largest language groups constitute over 90% of the African population of Nairobi, cf. Ominde, S., Land and population movements in Kenya, Evanston, Ill., 1968, 124 ffGoogle Scholar. The figures for Nairobi also need to be interpreted in the light of the fact that a large proportion of the children in secondary schools in the city receive their primary education in the rural areas.

6 Mr. R. Hemphill, then head of the Foreign Languages section of the Kenya Institute of Education, made a great deal of primary data available to me for further analysis. This included questionnaires completed in 1968–9 by the headmasters of 558 schools in 44 districts and municipalities. Mr. W. Cahill of the African Languages section in the Institute also provided me with questionnaires returned by teachers of Swahili from 37 districts in 1967. The information obtained from these was supplemented by visits to schools in different districts throughout Kenya and by information obtained by six university students in a supervised research project. In interpreting the information the advice of Mr. Abud Bashir and Mr. David Michuki proved to be invaluable.

7 I have given more detailed explanation of these issues in ch. xiv of W. H. Whiteley (ed.), Language in Kenya.

8 The term primary language is used to refer to a language, other than the first language, that has become the language habitually used for certain functions.

9 Masomo ya Kiswahili, Nairobi, Jomo Kenyatta Foundation, 1967–1970Google Scholar.

10 The areas comprising Rift Valley A were as follows: Elgeyo-Marakwet and Pokot; Laikipia; Trans-Nzoia; Uasin Gishu and Nakuru Districts. Those in Eastern Province B were Isiolo and Marsabit Districts.

11 A survey carried out by W. Cahill in 1967 indicated that 36% of the Standard 4 Swahili teachers in Coast Province had not been trained to teach the language, cf. Cahill, W., General features of the Standard IV Swahili class in Kenya, Nairobi, Kenya Institute of Education, 1968Google Scholar (mimeographed).

12 cf. a report by Abdulaziz, M. and Gorman, T. P. on ‘The teaching of language and linguistics at the University of Nairobi’, Journal of the Language Association of Eastern Africa, I, 2, 1970, 51–5Google Scholar.