ANALYSIS: Teaching English

State schools versus private school

Teachers also pointed to a big disparity between schools funded by the state and private schools – for example, in the materials provided and in exposure to English.

In private schools, it’s compulsory for all children to speak English at school all the time. But government school learners only encountered the language in English lessons.

Also, children in private pre-primary schools encounter English learning at the age of 3 or 4 while those in government schools do so only at 6 (when they join grade 1).

It was clear from our classroom observations that the two sets of learners were at different levels of communicative English. Those in private schools were able to answer questions posed by the teachers while those in government schools found responding in English challenging. Some learners in government schools responded in Luganda (their mother tongue) to questions posed to them in English.

We saw that teachers used their class time differently. The curriculum development centre guidelines stipulate that English lessons last 30 minutes. But those in private schools were between 40 to 60 minutes. Government school teachers were also less punctual.

Going forward

We conclude that the targets set by the curriculum development centre need reviewing for two reasons. The first is that they are unrealistic, given the environment in which English is being taught in rural Uganda. The second is that they fall below what’s required for a learner to be able to comprehend English texts and access the curriculum in English.

The recommended two years to acquire basic communicative skills and four years to acquire cognitive and academic language proficiency is only possible in well-resourced environments. Our study shows that children in rural Ugandan schools can’t acquire these in three years only.

There are broader issues to consider too. Learners need more time to be exposed to the language before they can learn through it. But children in government schools mostly use their mother tongues and aren’t exposed to media in English. Moreover, teachers in rural areas are not very proficient in English.

The government needs to review the policy. It also needs to employ qualified and specialised teachers in English language and support materials for English need to be thoroughly evaluated.

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Medadi Ssentanda is a lecturer, Department of African Languages, Makerere University