Abstract
M.A.
It is the contention of this study that historical factors surrounding education
and the teaching of African languages in South Africa have led to there being
deficiencies in second-language Zulu courses for learners of diverse language
and cultural groups in primary schools. The focus of this investigation is on
the authentic cultural content of courses and the application of reading
research from Applied Linguistics to such courses.
The research concerned with second-language learning, reading, reading
comprehension, cultural schemata and intercultural competence is examined
in this study. An application of this research to Zulu second-language
teaching materials, in order to demonstrate ways in which different kinds of
reading and cultural schemata can be taught to ten to fourteen year-old L2
learners with limited vocabulary and linguistic competence in Zulu, is made
within a single teaching theme.
The study illustrates ways in which reading is a particularly effective teaching
device in the second-language Zulu classroom and that multi-level tasks can
be devised which promote the development of reading skills and strategies,
the textual as well as the intercultural competence of diverse groups of
learners.