Browsing by Author "Jjingo, Caesar"

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    Cognitive task analysis in task-based syllabus design for the teaching and learning of Kiswahili as a second language in Ugandan secondary schools
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2018-12) Jjingo, Caesar; Visser, Marianna; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of African language.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The genesis of this theoretically informed dissertation is motivated by researcher’s need to explore both available and suitable conventional teaching and learning practices that are globally accepted with the aim of utilising them in Kiswahili L2 teacher-training at the School of Education, Makerere University, Uganda. In search for such conventional methods and approaches, through research literature review with respect to instructed second language acquisition in general, and by critically observing the Kiswahili teaching syllabus for lower secondary schools in Uganda, it emerged that Kiswahili pedagogies are still realised using traditional conventions of L2 teaching and learning methods. These conventions have been disproved and replaced by contemporary approaches such as task-based theories and their associated pedagogical approaches that the current study has adopted and demonstrated their applications for lower secondary schools in Uganda. The demonstration has largely been informed by Long’s (2005a) proposals that have also constituted the research design (methodology) of the current study. Using Long’s views, the study employed document analysis approach as well as researcher’s introspective and heuristic judgement techniques to generate its data i.e. the construction of (i) the overarching task theme, (ii) task description specifications (TDSs) and (iii) simulated task dialogues (STDs), as primary input in designing a task-based Kiswahili syllabus. Relatedly, Breen’s (1987a, 2001) views on task-based syllabus design principles have provided a framework on which the constructed data (TDSs) has been organised for its analysis and ultimate grading and sequencing of the designed Kiswahili pedagogical tasks. In relation to procedures of analysis, five out of forty-one TDSs and their respective STDs have purposely been selected for analysis purposes. Thus, the data has been analysed in three facets of task complexity. For example, the framework of Pica, Kanagy & Falodun (1993, 2009) has been employed to analyse the interactional complexity of the TDSs. Similarly, the views of Robinson (2001a, 2005, 2010) have provided useful insights into analysing the cognitive complexity of the TDSs. Lastly, Foster, Tonkyn & Wigglesworth’s (2000) framework, has been utilised to analyse the syntactic/ linguistics complexity of the STDs. The omission and alteration techniques as advanced by Hasan’s (1985), Henry and Roseberry’s (1998), have been utilised in decomplexifying the Kiswahili cognitive complexity features occurring in the TDSs and the decomplexification of the syntactic/linguistic complex properties exhibited in the realised STDs of the TDSs. Relatedly, the two principles from the Robinson’s (2010) SSARC model were used in grading and sequencing the various versions of cognitive and syntactic complexities occurring in the TDSs and STDs, respectively, to design Kiswahili learning tasks. Therefore, on the one hand, on the interactional feature basis, the study predominantly argues that the analysed TDSs exhibited task communication configurations of the information gap tasks. On the other hand, with regard to cognitive and syntactic analysis, the study has concluded that while the resource-directing variables of the analysed TDSs and STDs demonstrated an [-] feature, the resource-dispersing dimensions presented deviations between the [+/-] features. That is to say, as the [+/- prior knowledge] and [+/- single task] variables of TDSs and STDs of Task one, Task two and Task four exhibited the [+] feature, those of TDSs and STDs of Task three and Task five demonstrated the [-] feature, hence qualifying for their decomplexification/scaling down the complex features through the omission and alteration techniques to realised less and least cognitively and syntactically complex task version which were then sequenced from the least to the most complex task versions by using the principles of the SSARC model, as proposed by Robinson (2010). Thus, the above findings indicate to L2 Kiswahili researchers and teachers that while designing task-based syllabuses, all the task features such as cognitive variables, interactional variables as well as syntactic properties, that pose cognitive demands to the L2 learners, need to be taken into account to design a suitable syllabus that addresses the Kiswahili L2 learners’ needs such as those in Ugandan lower secondary schools. It is in this respect that the study recommends similar studies e.g. for primary schools in Uganda with the ultimate goal of gradually replacing the traditional syllabuses and their pedagogical practices with task-based syllabuses in the education system of Uganda and wider contexts for the teaching and learning of Kiswahili as an L2.
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    Exploring a forward design dimension in the design of school-based Kiswahili teaching syllabi for primary schools in Uganda
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2018) Jjingo, Caesar; Visser, Marianna
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: In Uganda, delays in teaching and learning of Kiswahili in primary schools have been experienced since their establishment in the education systems in the 1920s. At present, the language-in-education policy requires the National Curriculum Development Centre (NCDC) to prepare instructional materials for facilitating the teaching of Kiswahili as a compulsory subject from primary schools to secondary schools. However, the NCDC has been able to produce and launch the Kiswahili teaching syllabi for secondary schools only, delaying the introduction of the teaching syllabi for primary schools. This theoretical paper argues that the absence of a Kiswahili conventional syllabus in primary schools has led teachers to (i) abandon the teaching profession as Kiswahili language teachers, and (ii) attempt ‘designing’ individual-based (hereafter, school-based) syllabi. The paper intends to demonstrate how the quality of the existing school-based syllabi can be improved and also aims to demonstrate (to language teaching researchers, advisers and language teachers) in general, how teachers can design their respective school-based syllabi purposefully to strengthen the teaching and learning of Kiswahili in their respective schools and classrooms.
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    (Re-)examining the standard Kiswahili alphabet in the teaching syllabus for lower secondary schools in Uganda
    (Stellenbosch University, 2020) Jjingo, Caesar; Visser, Marianna
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Kiswahili is a foreign language (FL) in Uganda. Formally, the teaching of Kiswahili begins in the lower secondary phase. In this phase, Kiswahili had been taught for many years without an authorised syllabus. Nonetheless, in 2008, the government of Uganda launched the existing grammatical syllabus (hereafter, 2008 syllabus). It should be noted that, while the teaching of standard Kiswahili is among the aims postulated in the 2008 syllabus, information and topics regarding, for example, the alphabet of standard Kiswahili are missing in this syllabus. Pedagogically, this situation appears to contrast with, for example, the advanced scientific suggestions that the learning of the alphabet should be among the initial topics in grammatical syllabi and subsequently, in the FL classrooms’ activities. Using perspectives on document analysis to constitute its methodology, in this theoretical paper, we first provide a general overview of the grammatical syllabi as a framework for teaching and learning FLs, drawing specific examples from the 2008 syllabus. Then, we analyse the aims of teaching Kiswahili as established in the 2008 syllabus. Thereafter, we examine the alphabet of standard Kiswahili. Lastly, we propose possible procedures for adopting the Kiswahili alphabet into the 2008 syllabus, as a way of facilitating the teaching and learning of standard Kiswahili mainly in Uganda’s lower secondary schools.