Exploring mother tongue education in the foundation phase to tromote linguistic diversity: Learning barriers in a historically disadvantaged school

Abstract

This study focused on exploring the challenges of mother tongue education in the Foundation Phase in promoting linguistic diversity at a historically disadvantaged school in the Western Cape, South Africa. It adopted a qualitative case study located within an interpretive research paradigm. Focus group discussions and interviews were used for data collection, and the thematic analysis technique was employed for qualitative data. Thirty-two participants including twelve Foundation Phase learners (n=12: females = 6; males = 6; ages 7-9 years), eight Foundation Phase educators (n=8 female educators, ages 29-56 years), and twelve parents or caregivers (n=12, ages between 29-57 years) were purposively selected as participants from a historically disadvantaged school. This study found that non-mother tongue English-speaking learners in the Foundation Phase, growing up in historically disadvantaged areas and attending disadvantaged schools, experienced several learning barriers. These included educators’ lack of proficiency regarding non-mother tongue learners’ language, psychological-social barriers, and cultural diversity. This study concluded that some learners' linguistic rights in the Foundation Phase classrooms were seriously compromised because they did not receive their mother tongue instruction.

Keywords

• learning barriers
• non-mother tongue learning
• foundation phase
• historically disadvantaged schools
• linguistic diversity