Department of English, Media Studies and Linguistics

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    The United State of America's foreign policy towards Africa: The case studies of Kenya and Nigeria, 1990-2008
    (2010-06) Shai, Kgothatso
    See the attached abstract below
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    An analysis of the land issue as portrayed in selected novels by Ngugi wa Thiong'o
    (2011-11) Mondo, Lysta
    See the attached abstract below
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    The depiction of migration and identity in Zimbabwean Literature from 1980-2010
    (2015-08-05) Musanga, Terrence; Manase, I; Muponde, R
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    A study of the academic writing proficiency of level one students at the University of Venda
    (2016-01-29) Maluleke, Mzamani Johannes; Klue, E. K; Neeta, N. C. K; Student -- South Africa -- Limpopo
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    Travel Narrative: Examining selected Southern African text
    (2016-02) Sinyonde, Bright; Ndlovu, I.; Maluleke, M. J.
    See the abstract below
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    Representations of dance in Zimbabwean literature, post - 1960
    (2016-02-01) Gonye, Jairos; Manase, I.; Klu, E.
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    The depiction of female experiences in selected post-2000 South African narratives written by women
    (2016-05) Nyete, L. T.; Dube, B.; Ramaite, P. E.
    See the attached abstract below
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    Representations of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade in selected contemporary narratives
    (2016-05) Oduwobi, Oluyomi Abayoni; Sewlall, H.; Abodunrin, O.
    See the attached abstract below
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    An investigation of academic reading skills of science foundation students at a rural university
    (2016-09-23) Molotja, Tsebe Wilfred; Kaburise, P. K.; Neeta, N.
    It has been established, through research, that some first-entering science students display levels of under-preparedness for tertiary studies. One area in which this is seen is in students’ lack of academic reading ability. Although, some of these students read fluently they do not display competencies in other reading areas, such as to understand, interpret, infer or critique ideas expressed in science academic texts. This low academic reading proficiency has a negative effect on their studies. The aim of this study was to identify, through the National Benchmarking Tests (NBT), the reading competencies of all (100) students registered in the Science Foundation Programme (SFP) in the University of Venda. SFP caters for students who did not attain the required scores in Mathematics and Physical Science. These students’ overall scoring, including English competency, is less than the required (26) points, even though they obtained university entrance scores in their Matric Examination. A NBT was used to identify students’ reading competencies and based on these results, a reading profile of the students was drawn up and was used to design an intervention strategy to enhance existing competencies and to remedy any shortcomings. To achieve the study’s aim, a mixedmethod approach was used. The method was predominantly quantitative, because of the statistical aspects of the data from NBT, however, it had some elements of qualitative approach through the use of a case study and the designing of an intervention strategy in response to the profile. The results of the study indicated that the majority of students performed at the basic and lower-intermediate levels. This kind of reading profile means that students on SFP do not possess the academic reading skills needed for them to succeed with their required academic reading activities, without some kind of structured intervention. The design of such a tool (appendix 5) forms the second part of this study
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    The Xitsonga murmured speech sounds and their representations in the Xitsonga orthography
    (2016-09-23) Shabangu, Sakie Isaac; Phaswana, N. E.; Klu, E. K.; Chauke, M. T.
    Orthographic symbols of languages represent specific speech sounds with their specific phonetic qualities. This research aimed at analysing orthographic representations of murmured speech sounds in the Xitsonga orthography. The qualitative approach was employed to examine the production of murmured speech sounds and their orthographic representations in Xitsonga. The analysis was based on data collected from interviews with speakers of the Xitsonga language, Xitsonga educators and lecturers who are themselves Xitsonga-speaking, Xitsonga authors and Xitsonga subject specialists, and also from existing literature by Xitsonga authors and language scholars. The study made recommendations that will help the development and revitalisation of the Xitsonga language and also benefit the speakers of the language as well as scholars and linguists.
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    Teacher's and learner's beliefs about the use of code-switching in English Second Language classrooms : a case of two secondary schools in Masvingo District, Zimbabwe
    (2016-09-23) Mareva, Rugare; Kaburise, P. K.; Klu, E. K.
    The study sought to investigate the role played by learners’ mother tongue, in the teaching and learning of English in secondary schools in Zimbabwe. Two secondary schools in Masvingo District were used as a case study. The study was informed by bilingualism, models of bilingualism and related theories such as Second Language Acquisition (SLA) and Communication Strategies. The selected communication strategy that was focused on is code-switching. This communication strategy reveals the important role that the learners’ L1 can play in learning English. The study, therefore, sought to gain insights into the beliefs of secondary school teachers and learners of English about the use of code-switching in the teaching and learning of English. The study also sought to investigate the ESL teachers’ perceptions on the relationship between code-switching and emerging varieties of English called New Englishes, as well as the teachers’ perceptions on the teaching of such local varieties of English. The inquiry adopted a qualitative research paradigm and focused on two purposively sampled secondary schools comprising one rural day, and one urban boarding school that also enrols day learners. It was the researcher’s belief that these schools would offer useful insights about the role of the learners’ L1 in the teaching and learning of English. The study employed three data collection tools, namely observation, interviews and focus group discussions. Ten Form One and ten Form Three English lessons were observed per school, to give a total of twenty lessons. The four ESL teachers whose lessons were observed at the two schools were interviewed. The researcher also held focus group discussions with a sample of a group of ten Form One and ten Form Three English learners per school. Thus, four focus group discussions were held. Data were analysed and presented qualitatively through identification of emerging themes, and through descriptions, narratives, direct quotes, and tables. Results show that the ESL teachers and learners who participated in the study code-switched from English to the learners’ L1 as a communication strategy and teaching and learning tool, mainly to foster understanding among learners and between the learners and their teachers, and for other communicative and social functions. Results also indicate that there was more code-switching at School B (rural day secondary school) than at School A (urban boarding secondary school), although the teachers’ and learners’ code-switching functions at the two secondary schools were by and large similar. It also emerged that the frequencies of the teachers code v switching differed from teacher to teacher, with Teacher A (urban boarding secondary school) code-switching moderately and Teacher B (urban boarding secondary school) code-switching minimally, while Teacher C and Teacher D (rural day secondary school) code-switched frequently. With regard to the learners, the study revealed that Class A learners (urban boarding secondary school) code-switched moderately during formal classroom exchanges with their teacher, but code-switched a lot among themselves. Class B learners (urban boarding secondary school), Class C and Class D learners (rural day secondary school), code-switched minimally during formal classroom exchanges with their teachers. However, as was the case with Class A learners, they code-switched a lot among themselves. The teachers were largely tolerant of their learners’ code-switching although they showed awareness of the possible negative effects of learners’ code-switching in the learning of ESL. As for the learners, the majority expressed an appreciation of their teachers’ code-switching but there were also negative sentiments against the teachers’ code-switching. The inquiry also revealed that there was unanimous agreement among the four teachers that there is a relationship between code-switching and New Englishes. In addition, two of the teachers expressed the view that there is nothing wrong with teaching the local variety of English in the schools, while the other two said they preferred the teaching of ‘standard’ English. In light of the findings, the study recommends that language policy planners revisit the English-only policy in the school and consider adopting the endonormative rather than the exo-normative model of English for the education system. The study also recommends that the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education should hold workshops to sensitise teachers on how code-switching may best be employed as a teaching and learning tool. Furthermore, the study recommends that ESL teachers be guided by the Postmethod pedagogy, a sense of plausibility as well as the notion of relativism in their decisions on code-switching. In addition, the inquiry recommends that the Zimbabwe Schools Examinations Council be sensitive to aspects of the local variety of English rather than set exo-normative models. Finally, the study recommends that further research be done on code-switching in school types which were not included in the sample for the present study.
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    An analysis of written concord errors among Grade 12 First Additional Language learners in Vhembe District of Limpopo Province, South Africa
    (2017-05) Nndwamato, Ndivhudzanyi Michael; Lambani, M. N.; Klu, E.;
    Learning English as a second language by the South African learners of English First Additional Language (FAL) causes many challenges, such as committing errors in concord as there are differences between the learners’ mother tongue and the target language. Even at Grade 12 level, which is the exit point to institutions of higher learning or to the workplace, learners still display some deficiencies in the mastery of the English concord. This happens despite the fact that, in many South African schools, English is used as a medium of instruction and learnt as a First Additional Language (FAL) especially at high schools. Through the analysis of the written concord errors committed by the 72 of the 720 sampled Grade 12 English FAL learners in Vhembe District, the study answered to two questions which formed its cornerstone which are: what are the most common types of written concord/ subject-verb agreement errors which are committed by Grade 12 FAL learners and what are the causes thereof? The study employed both the quantitative and the qualitative methods to pursue the primary question. Learners responded to the questionnaires and the researcher also analysed their teacher-marked English FAL composition scripts with the focus on concord/subject-verb agreement usage. The findings were that concord/subject-verb agreement was a challenge to the majority of the participants. There was not even a single question which recorded a 100% correct entry. The question on collective nouns was found to be the hardest to the participants while comparatively, the singular indefinite pronoun question recorded the best results. The learners’ written compositions were also found to have been marred by concord/subject-verb agreement errors. In most instances, the learners had resorted to simple sentences avoiding the complex sentence construction as those would have required complicated application of concord/ subject-verb agreement usage. Based on the findings, the following recommendations were made: teaching of grammar should be intensified, and that teachers of English should be retrained even if it will be through the in-service programmes
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    Assessment of the Medium of Instruction on Pupils Academic Performance in Literacy: a Study of Selected Lower Primary Schools in Ghana
    (2017-05-18) Ansre, Margaret Ama; Klu, E. K.; Kaburise, P. K.; Mulaudzi, L. M. P.
    This research assesses how the choice of a particular medium of instruction supports Primary Class Three (P.3) pupils’ academic performance in literacy. The need for this research has been occasioned by the inconsistencies that exist in Ghana’s language-in-education policy. The current language-in-education policy allows for only the dominant language of the community, in which a school is situated, to be used as medium of instruction, even when pupils speak different languages in one P.3 classroom. The research adopts a mixed methodology approach and uses purposive sampling technique to select a total sample of 317 participants. This number comprises pupils, teachers, parents and other stakeholders in education from 8 schools within 3 municipalities in the Greater Accra region of Ghana. Five (5) of the schools use English medium of instruction and three (3) schools use Ghanaian language or mother-tongue. Data collection tools for the research are interviews, participant’s observations, video recordings and diagnostic tests. The main finding, based on the test results of the research, establishes that when mother-tongue and English are compared as mediums of instruction from Kindergarten One (KG1) up to P. 3, there is no significant difference pupils’ academic results in literacy. In view of this, the research advocates for further debate on other factors that support pupils academic performance in literacy, in addition to mother-tongue and English medium of instruction in lower primary schools.
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    A study of the English reading comprehension strategies utilised by level-one students at the University of Venda
    (2017-05-18) Demana, Ndishunwani Vincent; Klu, E. K.; Mulaudzi, L. M. P.; Radzilani, E. T.
    The purpose of this study was to investigate the English reading strategies utilised by level-one students at the University of Venda. The respondents in this study were three hundred and nine level-one students from various Schools in the University of Venda who were doing English Communication Skills (ECS) course in the 2016 academic year. The study adopted a mixed methods research design (quantitative and qualitative research approaches). Data were collected by means of a self-completion questionnaire of the Survey of Reading Strategies (SORS) developed by Mokhtari and Sheorey. The researcher employed descriptive statistics to analyse frequency use of each reading strategy using frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation, and usage level. Open-ended data were summarised by using grouping technique. The results of the study revealed that the participants in this study were, to a large extent, aware of what they were doing when reading as they reported utilising English reading strategies with different frequencies and with the high and moderate levels of reading strategy usage. The highest mean frequency with which the respondents used a given category of strategies when reading English academic materials was 3.98 (high) which was derived from the category of problem-solving strategies, while the category of support reading strategies and global reading strategies were reported being used with the relative mean of 3.79 (high) and 3.57 (high) respectively. The findings can be helpful to students in increasing their awareness of reading strategies while reading, improving their understanding of the reading process, and enhancing confidence in their own reading ability and to teachers and lecturers in helping their students learn to become constructively responsive and thoughtful readers, which will promote academic reading skills and ultimately enhance academic achievement.