People greet each other in isiXhosa: “Molo, baba” says one lecturer. Prof Russell Kaschula admonishes her for speaking isiZulu – this is an isiXhosa tutorial after all.
People greet each other in isiXhosa: “Molo, baba” says one lecturer. Prof Russell Kaschula admonishes her for speaking isiZulu – this is an isiXhosa tutorial after all.
Kaschula asks the class: “What is ‘hello madam’?” A chorus of “molo nkosikazi” echoes around the room. Kaschula, assisted by Bulelwa Nosilela, Subject Head of African Language Studies, then asks the lecturers to practice the isiXhosa clicks: c, q and x.
Twenty jaws move around the room in unison, faces are contorted as tongues go back and forth, trying to roll out the sounds, giving their palates a thorough massage.
Lecturers from Rhodes University School of Journalism and Media Studies then learn how to introduce themselves: Ndiyintatheli – I am a journalist.
The lecturers have one isiXhosa lecture and tutorial per week. They are three weeks into the staff course which is part of the Rhodes University- Santed (South African-Norway Tertiary Education Development) Multilingualism Project,of which one of the aims is to promote the acquisition of isiXhosa as an additional language by students and staff.
From next year, journalism students will also be required to have successfully completed an isiXhosa course by the time they finish their degree.
In addition to second language speakers, the course will also be offered to mother tongue isiXhosa speakers and will develop their academic writing and speaking skills in isiXhosa.
Nosilela, along with Prof Russell Kaschula, head of the Rhodes School of African Languages, is piloting the course for next year.
Pam Maseko, a lecturer within the department, did a needs analysis last year and went out to interview practising journalists such as those from the South African Broadcasting Corporation and various radio stations to make the course more vocation specific. Maseko is also assisting in designing the course.
Kaschula says the course is not just language- but culturally-specific as well: “Journalists need to know how to introduce themselves in culturally-appropriate ways, they need to be aware of issues around language and power and the different sets of rules which govern interactions, for example, when talking to a person in authority, you need to know how to ask certain questions,” he said.
Courses in isiXhosa are also offered in the pharmacy, education and law faculties. Kaschula says, “We’re excited by how other departments and faculties have welcomed us into their spaces.
The whole aim is to move language to vocation-specific courses. In law for example, they should have a sense of intercultural and cross-cultural awareness and be able to speak the language of clients or at least be able to greet clients in their mother tongue so that they feel comfortable.”
The isiXhosa for pharmacy programme was formally integrated in the pharmacy curriculum in 2008. IsiXhosa is offered at two levels, as an elective to final year students and those enrolled in the Doctorate of Pharmacy programme who work in hospitals around the Eastern Cape.
Prof Roderick Walker, the Dean and Head of Pharmacy, says the course is not enforced as not all pharmacy students are going to practice in the Eastern Cape.
The numbers of students enrolled for the course have doubled since last year. Those studying for a Doctorate of Pharmacy have an orientation week and spend four to five afternoons learning isiXhosa at Rhodes and thereafter they do video conferencing from the places where they are doing their practical work.
The course teaches them basics of the language which they can start using in hospital wards. Walker says that doctoral students have benefited from the course: “They’re dealing with patients on a daily basis so they have seen the value much sooner than the final years who see patients every three to four weeks.”
Walker says, “It is vitally important that students who live and work in the Eastern Cape learn Xhosa.” Kaschula says that the feedback from pharmacy students has been positive: “They’ve said how their confidence has improved and how it has opened up a whole different world for them.
They can enter a person’s space as a practitioner and check whether the person fully understands what medicine they’re supposed to be taking.
It makes them more efficient in what they’re doing.” Kaschula says that learning an African language is important because, “we’re trying to be a nation of unity and diversity.
For many years black people have had to learn English. It’s high time that English speakers also learn an African language as part of nation building.”
