Funda Ujabule leads way in foundation phase of primary education

The Herald

3 days ago

Funda Ujabule School in Soweto has positioned itself as a leading example in the foundation phase of primary education and the development of literacy through mother-tongue languages.
The public school, founded by the University of Johannesburg (UJ) in partnership with the Gauteng Department of Education in 2010, is pioneering new teaching methods combining technology, research and innovation to drive excellence.
The UN Educational Scientific and Cultural (Unesco) has included Funda Ujabule's teaching model in its network of associated schools across the world.
The teacher education process is a collaboration between academia and practice and includes UJ's Bachelor of Education students, who do practicals at the school.
Dr Fikile Simelane of UJ's department of childhood education said when children start their literacy trajectory it must be in their mother tongue.
'When you look at oral language development, the components of language development is what we call phonology, vocabulary, morphology and syntax.
'They [children] come from home with those components. So, the language they bring for learning is a very strong source they bring into the classroom.'
Simelane believes that children can better understand teaching concepts in their mother tongue before they can be translated to English.
'Teaching must be brought to their reality [in their] mother tongue. We start conceptualising and comprehension in our languages; it is called inference. We infer and bring in our background knowledge using our language.
'Reading at Funda is in a hierarchy form starting with oral language development in grade R, where the home language of a child is fully developed.
'Once the child is developed, they then move to alphabetic principle, which is about phonics, understanding the sound of your language.'
Simelane said language was a strong tool for comprehension and that vocabulary served as a bridge for word recognition.
'It goes back to the teacher, teaching the children the vocabulary, the terminology of concepts within the classroom itself so that they are able to use that in their daily conversation.'
The school's departmental head, Refilwe Ntsoane, said: 'We are committed to improving our children's literacy, from the foundation phase they are rooted in their mother tongue, which helps with comprehension.
'In grade 1 we are using the sandbox programme. It is a programme meant to improve literacy in schools. Teachers are taken through training on how to help children with creative writing.'
Ntsoane said parents who were not honest about the languages they spoke at home presented a challenge for teachers because this affected the children's comprehension of language and vocabulary.