Description of project:

The Centre for Applied Language and Literacy Studies and Services in Africa (CALLSSA), is an interdisciplinary centre conducting applied research into teaching, learning and using South Africa's many languages, both indigenous and international in origin. This project is a concept literacy project aimed at comprehensively identifying terms, concepts and language structures in English that present teaching and learning difficulties for grade 5 to 9 maths and science learners and teachers. In South Africa, all African language speaking learners from grade 5 to 9 study maths and science through the medium of English, which is not their mother tongue. Phase one of this project aims to comprehensively identify which terms and concepts present the difficulties.

The Shuttleworth Foundation's involvement:

The Shuttleworth Foundation is committed to funding part of phase one, which includes research and workshops.

Aims and objectives:

The aim of the project is to identify terms, concepts and language structures in English that present teaching and learning difficulties in maths and science and to find African language equivalents with the help of African language experts. Extensive in-service teacher workshops will be conducted to validate the materials produced and it will also be trialed in pilot schools.

Updated Status:

The foundation’s commitment to the project has been concluded with the last financial disbursement. Refinements are still continuing and details of the completed project will be available next year.

Status:

The database of terminology is up and running and is currently being refined. The project will then focus on identifying key teachers in focus groups to validate the data collected. The Shuttleworth Foundation is committed to funding the project till the end of 2003.