Journal of the African Language Teachers Association

Preliminary Pages

2022-12-22T19:11:07+00:00

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Evaluation of Standard-Based First-Year African Language Textbooks

2022-12-22T19:18:43+00:00

Textbooks of most African languages were written during the grammar-translation era, and some still serve as guides to the teaching and learning of African languages. This study intends to evaluate the vision of African language teaching and learning materials, specifically first-year textbooks focusing on where the African language teaching materials have been, where the field is now, and where it might go in terms of teaching and learning materials, based on the standards for foreign language teaching and learning in the United States. The study follows Schleicher and Gleisner's (2001) research on African language textbooks, which found that many African language textbooks were not communicatively oriented.

Teaching African Languages through Distance Education

2022-12-22T19:39:44+00:00

Distance education has always posed many problems for instructors, perhaps, the most obvious being how best to deliver lessons and maintain effective communication given the physical distance between student and instructor. There are even more challenges in L2 teaching where the major goal is to get learners to speak in the target language rather than simply acquiring knowledge and being able to demonstrate it through written assignments as is the case with many other subjects. However, with advances in technology, many of the problems can now be solved. This paper discusses distance education, looking at some of the challenges and how they can be resolved in the teaching of African languages. It is argued that a synchronous distance education class is ideal for teaching and learning a language, and when instruction is modeled on sound pedagogical principles can just be as effective as a conventional class.

Enhancing the “Communities” Goal of the 5Cs for African Language Learning: A Proposal

2022-12-22T19:43:35+00:00

This paper demonstrates the need to enhance the Communities goal of the ACTFL Standards for students learning African languages as foreign languages. Significantly, it stresses the need for thriving communities or associations outside the classroom where all the parties involved in the teaching and learning of African languages can convene, and where their projects meet, interact, and are exchanged. Specifically, I propose communities where students can go to learn the new as well as to reinforce the old, by virtue of their membership. It is argued that the Communities strand of the five goals is the context within which the four remaining goals converge and flourish.

Intensive Summer Fulbright-Hays GPA for Advanced Swahili and Intercultural Development

2022-12-22T19:47:31+00:00

This article applies Bennett’s (1993) Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity to reflect on Fulbright-Hays Group Projects Abroad (GPA) for Summer Intensive Advanced Swahili in Tanzania 2008-2016. Bennett and his associates have identified six stages of intercultural development: Denial of differences, Defense of one’s culture, Minimization of differences, Acceptance of the new culture, Adaption of the new culture, and Integration into the culture. The first three stages, ethnocentric stages, characterize the reaction to a new culture as viewed from one’s own culture. In the last three stages, a person views their culture as part of a complex of world cultures and worldviews. Experience with the Swahili GPA has shown that participants come to the program with different levels of preparedness and development. In Arusha, Tanzania, the participants of the program took classes, lived in dorms and with host families, visited cultural sites, wrote about their cultural experiences, and explored various subjects of their interest. This article presents anecdotes from GPA that demonstrate that we find our participants in all six stages. We propose a variety of activities and approaches that can facilitate the learners’ development to integrate into Swahili culture. The activities involve developing awareness among the participants and assisting them in reflecting on their culture and the new culture.

Teaching Kiswahili in a Summer Abroad Program: The Washington University’s Experience

2022-12-22T19:51:25+00:00

Study abroad programs in Africa vary in duration, academic focus, and degree of interaction with the host culture. Within the broad range of programs are the short-term, language- and culture-oriented programs that seek to enrich a learner's skills in the target African language through experiential learning. The Washington University in St. Louis (WU) Summer in Kenya, the focus of this paper, is one such program that seeks to maximize the benefits of learning Kiswahili and understanding Kenyan society by carefully blending coursework, homestays, service learning, guest speaker presentations, and guided excursions.