Abstract
M.A. (Applied Linguistics)
Despite a worldwide drive to eradicate illiteracy, the
numbers of illiterates are still soaring. Southern Africa is
no exception to this. Even though statistics regarding
illiteracy may be misleading, there are an estimated 400 000
illiterate mother tongue speakers of Afrikaans in South
Africa.
This study tries to establish the reasons for this situation
within a historical-political framework. It further provides
a sociocognitive basis for mother tongue literacy teaching,
relying on the discipline of sociolinguistics. Literacy
skills form part of the language user's communicative
competence; this study, therefore, endeavours to situate
literacy teaching within the communicative approach to
language teaching with its emphasis on the needs of the
language learner, the functionality of the acquired skills
and the active participation of the language learner in the
teaching activities.
From this perspective a selection of literacy material in
Afrikaans, representative of both the mainstream
"establishment" type and the more "radical" school, is
discussed to arrive at a theoretical and practical rationale
for the teaching of literacy to Afrikaans mother tongue
speakers, stripped of political undertones which so often
direct literacy programmes.
The main critique on Afrikaans literacy material is that it
is either too behaviouristically structured or that no
planned progressive structuring has been built into the
courses. Both types of material can lead to dissatisfaction
amongst literacy students if the respective course does not
fulfil their need for literacy. This situation is often the
result of an incomplete needs analysis and the creation of
literacy material without a clear image of the target group.
The unstructured manner in which literacy material is created
and distributed is due to the lack of a national literacy
strategy, as well as the nature of adult literacy teaching
where specific needs of specific groups of illiterates
dictate the type of material.
A way of counteracting these problems would be to establish a
national organisation to coordinate, amongst others, the
development and distribution of literacy material. In this
material the needs of the learner will be in a central
position with the interaction between the learner and the
teacher taking place in meaningful contexts. A thorough
knowledge of andragogy and applied linguistics can therefore
help to develop literacy material that will benefit Afrikaans
illiterates, be they mother tongue speakers of the language
or second language users who need to be literate in
Afrikaans.