The Paradigm of Zimbabwean English: Implications for ESL Teaching
Abstract
' New Englishes ' in non-native English-speaking countries present challenges in
English as a second language (ESL) teaching. So far, the secondary school
English syllabus in Zimbabwe disregards the emerging variety of Zimbabwean
English, which is structurally diverse from native Standard English. This study
explores the place of Zimbabwean English in the teaching of ZIMSEC Ordinary
Level English. It examines classroom teaching methodologies, materials,
assessment practices and teacher training. Semi-structured interviews were
used to solicit perceptions from ten Form Four English teachers from various
schools in Zimbabwe. Guided by the Communicative Language Teaching (CLT)
approach, the study established that, teachers of English are not qualified for
variety-related instruction. Moreover, the teaching methods, materials and
assessment practices exclude the Zimbabwean variety of English.
Acknowledging Zimbabwean English as an appropriate model of instructionwill
eliminate variety-related challenges in the ESL classroom, and mirror the
sociolinguistic reality of English diversity.
References
Alimi, M. (2011). Botswana English: Implications for English
Language Teaching and Assessment. Journal of Multilingual
and Multicultural Development, 32(4): 309 €“324.
Bieswanger, M. (2008). Varieties of English in Current English
Language Teaching. Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics, 38:
€“47.
Burns, N. & Grove, S. K. (2009). The Practice of Nursing Research:
Appraisal, Synthesis, and Generation of Evidence. St. Louis,
Mo: Saunders Elsevier.
Burridge, K. & Kortmann, B. (eds.) (2008). Varieties of English: The
Pacific and Australasia. Berlin and New York: Mouton de
Gruyter.
Chimhundu, H. (1998). Keynote Address of the Zimbabwe Delegation
to the Experts Meeting of the Intergovernmental Conference
on African Language Policies. Harare: March 17 €“21.
Clarke, V. & Braun, V. (2013). Teaching Thematic Analysis:
Overcoming Challenges and Developing Strategies for
Effective Learning. The Psychologist, 26(2): 120 €“123.
Cohen, L., Manion, L. & Morrison, K. (2011). Research Methods in
Education (7th Edition). Abingdon: Routledge.
Collis, J. & Hussey, R. (2009). Business Research: A Practical Guide
for Understanding and Postgraduate Students (2nd Edition).
New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Constitution of Zimbabwe. (2013). Amendment Number 20 (2013).
Harare: Government Printers.
Cook, G. (2003). Applied Linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Creswell, J. W. (2009). Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative
and Mixed Methods Approaches (3rd Edition). Thousand
Oaks, CA, US: Sage Publications, Inc.
Dawson, E. (2011). Beyond the Postcolonial: A Project in World
Englishes Literature. Transnational Literature, 3(2): 1 €“12.
Freedman, D. A., Robert, P. & Roger, A. P. (2007). Statistics (4th
Edition). New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
Ghauri, P. N. & Gronhaug, K. (2005). Research Methods in Business
Studies: A Practical Guide (3rd Edition). UK, Harlow:
Prentice Hall.
Gnutzmann, C. (2005). ' Standard English ' and ' World Standard
English ' . Linguistic and Pedagogical Considerations. In C.
Gnutzmann& F. Intemann (eds.). The Globalisation of
English and the English Language Classroom. Tüebingen:
Narr: 107 €“118.
Clemenciana Mukenge | 125
Groves, J. (2010). Error or Feature? The Issue of Interlanguage and
Deviations in Non-native Varieties of English. HKUB Papers
in Applied Language Studies, 14: 108 €“129.
Guerra, L. (2014). Using Translation to Teach Native and Non-native
Varieties of International English. e-TEALS: An E-journal of
Teacher Education and Applied Language Studies, 5: 24 €“48.
Hachipola, S. J. (1998). A Survey of the Minority Languages of
Zimbabwe. Harare: University of Zimbabwe Publications.
Hadebe, S. (2006). The Standardisation of the Ndebele Language
Through Dictionary-Making. Oslo: The ALLEX Project.
Hargett, G. (1998). Assessment in ESL and Bilingual Education.
Portland, Oregon: Northwest Regional Educational
Laboratory.
Hungwe, K. (2007). Language Policy in Zimbabwean Education:
Historical Antecedents and Contemporary Issues. Compare,
(2): 139 €“145.
Hamp-Lyons, L. & Zhang, W. B. (2001). World Englishes: Issues in
and From Academic Writing Assessment. In J. Flowerdew &
M. Peacock (eds.). English for Academic Purposes: Research
Perspectives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 101 €“
Hymes, C. (1972). On Communicative Competence. In J. Pride & J.
Holmes (eds.). Sociolinguistics. Harmondsworth: Penguin:
€“295.
Jenkins, J. (2006). World Englishes. Oxford: Routledge.
Kachru, B. B. (1985). Institutionalized Second-Language Varieties.
In S. Greenbaum & B. B. Kachru (eds.) The English
Language Today. Oxford: Pergamon: 211 €“226.
Kachru, B. B. (1992). Teaching World Englishes. In B. B. Kachru
(ed.) The other Tongue: English Across Cultures. Urbana:
University of Illinois Press: 355 €“365.
Kadenge, M. (2009). African Englishes: The Indigenisation of English
Vowels by Zimbabwean Native Shona Speakers. The Journal
of Pan African Studies, 3(1): 156 €“173.
Kadenge, M. &Mugari, V. (2015). The Current Politics of the African
Languages in Zimbabwe. Per Linguam: A Journal for
Language Learning, 31(2): 21 €“32.
Kadenge, M. & Nkomo, D. (2011). The Politics of the English
Language in Zimbabwe. Language Matters: Studies in the
Languages of Africa, 42(2): 248 €“263.
Kirkpatrick, A. (2007). World Englishes: Implications for
International Communication and English Language
Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
| The Paradigm of Zimbabwean English
Klippel, F. & Doff, S. (2007). Englischdidaktik: Praxishandbuch fur
die Sekundarstufe I und II. Berlin: Cornelsen.
Kortmann, B. & E. Schneider (eds.) (2004). Handbook of Varieties of
English. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Labov, W. A. S. & Boberg, C. (2005). The Atlas of North American
English: Phonetics, Phonology, and Sound Change: A
Multimedia Reference Tool. New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Lee, H. (2012). World Englishes in a High School English Class: A
Case from Japan. In A. Matsuda (ed.) Principles and
Practices for Teaching English as an International
Language. Bristol: Multilingual Matters: 154 €“168.
Magwa W. (2006). Towards an African Renaissance in Language
Planning. A Review of Strategies to Promote the use of
Indigenous Languages as Tools for Development: The Case of
Higher Education Sector in Zimbabwe. In D. Mutasa (ed.)
African Languages in the 21st Century: The Main
Challenges. Pretoria: Simba Guru Publishers: 150 €“179.
Magwa, W. (2010). Revisiting the Language Question in Zimbabwe:
A Multilingual Approach to the Language-in-Education
Policy. Journal of Multicultural Discourses, 5(2): 157 €“168.
Makoni, S. & Mashiri, P. (2006). Critical Historiography: Does
Language Planning in Africa Need a Construct of Language
as Part of its Theoretical Apparatus? In S. Makoni & A.
Pennycook (eds.) Disinvesting and Reconstituting
Languages. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters: 62 €“81.
Makoni, S. B. (1993). Is Zimbabwean English a Type of New English?
African Study Monographs, 14(2): 97 €“107.
Mareva, R., Kaburise, P. & Klu, E. (2016). Teaching "Standard
English" or Local Code-switched New Englishes in Schools in
"Outer Circle" Countries? Insights from Selected Secondary
School Teachers of English in Zimbabwe. IRA International
Journal of Education and Multidisciplinary Studies, 4(1):
€“2526.
Marungudzi, T. (2009). English as a Language of Learning and
Teaching: Perspectives of Secondary School Teachers in the
Masvingo District, Zimbabwe. Master of Arts Thesis,
University of South Africa. Available at:
http://hdl.handle.net/10500/3061
Marungudzi, T. (2016). Towards a Corpus-based Study of
Zimbabwean English: A State-of-the-Art Review and
Implications for Further Research. International Journal of
English and Education, 5(2): 1 €“13.
Clemenciana Mukenge | 127
Maseko, B. & Ndlovu, K. (2013). Indigenous Languages and
Linguistic Rights in the Zimbabwean Media. Online
International Journal of Arts and Humanities, 2(5): 150 €“156.
Mashiri, P. (2009). Shonglish Derisive Names within the Domestic
Environment among the Shona People of Zimbabwe. NAWA
Journal of Language and Communication, 3(1): 66 €“80.
Matsuda, A. (2017). Preparing Teachers to Teach English as an
International Language. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
Mhute, I. (2015). Language Policy, the likely Solution for
Zimbabwean Problems. European Scientific Journal, 11(29):
€“7431.
Mkanganwi, K. G. (1992). Language Planning in Southern Africa. In
N. T. Crawhall (ed.) Democratically Speaking: International
Perspectives on Language Planning. South Africa: National
Language Project: 6 €“11.
Mutasa, D. (2006). African Languages in the 21st Century. In D.
Mutasa (ed.) African Languages in the 21st Century: The
Main Challenges. Pretoria: Simba Guru Publishers: 79 €“125.
Ndhlovu, F. (2009). The Politics of Language and Nation Building in
Zimbabwe. Bern: Peter Lang.
Ndlovu, E. (2013). Mother Tongue Education in Official Minority
Languages of Zimbabwe: A Language Management Critique.
Unpublished PhD thesis, University of the Free State.
Ngara, E. A. (1982). Bilingualism, Language Contact and Language
Planning. Gwelo: Mambo Press.
Nhongo, R. (2013). A National Language Policy for Zimbabwe in the
Twenty-First Century: Myth or Reality? Journal of Language
Teaching and Research, 4(6): 1208 €“215.
Norrish, I. (1997). English or English? Attitudes, Local Varieties and
English Language Teaching. TESL-EJ: Teaching English as
a Second or Foreign Language, 3(1): 37 €“51.
Platt, J., Talbot, H. W. & Ho, M. L. (1984). The New Englishes.
London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Prashanti, G. & Bhavani, D. K. (2016). Secondary School Teachers '
Perspectives on Teaching Pronunciation, Accents and
Varieties. International Journal of English Language,
Literature and Humanities, IV(1): 64 €“176.
Richards, J. C. (2006). Communicative Language Teaching Today.
New York: Cambridge University Press.
Richards, J. C. & Rodgers, T. S. (2005). Approaches and Methods in
Language Teaching (2nd Edition). Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
| The Paradigm of Zimbabwean English
Savignon, J. S. (1997). Communicative Competence: Theory and
Classroom Practice. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
Schneider, E. W. (2007). Postcolonial English: Varieties Around the
World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Whong, M. (2011). Language Teaching: Linguistic Theory in
Practice. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Widdowson, H. G. (1984). Explorations in Applied Linguistics 2.
Oxford: Oxford University Press
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright © by Department of Foreign Languages and Linguistics, University of Dar es Salaam
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher, except for short extracts in fair dealing, for research or private study, critical scholarly review or discourse with an acknowledgement.
