Business Day - Newspaper
Guy Willoughby
SA WOMEN HAVE AFRICAN LANGUAGES PROGRAMMED

Two years ago, Dr Tessa Dowling of the African languages department at the University of Cape Town was just another dedicated teacher in despair over SA's deepening educational crisis. A lecturer in Xhosa with six years of experience, and co-author with colleague Pamela Maseko of a keynote article called African Language Teaching at Universities, Dowling complains about the poor standard of second-language graduates SA universities are producing. "With most of these students going on to become teachers," she says, "the future of African languages in our schools looks bleak."

Unlike many other educators, however, Dowling has not been content to wring her hands. In 1995 she had travelled to the UK to attend an academic conference, and there she discovered multimedia, the bringing together on a digital platform of previously distinct media such as video, sound, graphics and text. Three years later, Dowling and her partner, Christine Dunckley, are marketing a national first: a CD-ROM programme called Thetha isiXhosa Nathi (Speak Xhosa With Us), which is set to revolutionise the teaching of indigenous languages.

After several trying years as a schoolteacher and as an academic, wrestling with the Cinderella status of African languages as a discipline at schools and universities, she was struck by the vast possibilities multimedia presented. "You navigate a CD-ROM programme at your own pace. For a student, this is invaluable; like having your own tutor." Dowling returned to UCT from her conference at a timely moment: the university had just committed itself to setting up an interdisciplinary programme to introduce multimedia as a teaching tool, and was canvassing academics. Enthusiastic about initiating a programme for the African Languages Department, Dowling went along to a computer-programming session and was bitterly disappointed: "There was no way I was going to become a computer programmer in a hurry!" Enter Christine Dunckley, a Cape Town-based computer-programming professional. She had been one of Dowling's private Xhosa students - "the demand is great among business people to learn the language", says Dowling - and one day she bumped into her disheartened former teacher.

"Tessa told me she was frustrated because she had discovered CD-ROM, this marvelous teaching tool, but couldn't do the programming," smiles Dunckley. "I said, 'Look no further' . I had just resigned, and was looking for a new project. If Tessa could concentrate on the teaching material, I would come on board as the programmer."

The partnership was born, and personified in 1997 as a company called African Voices, dedicated to teaching African languages through multimedia. Then, for 18 months, Dowling and Dunckley toiled long and hard to make a vision a reality. The active support of many role players was needed: fellow academics, voice artists, actors and camera crews on location. "UCT put up substantial seed money for the project and provided necessary technical expertise", says Dowling. "In return, the department has free use of our programme, and since last year it has become a compulsory part of the Xhosa Intensive year curriculum."

What impresses the most is the dynamic use made of the resources of multimedia. Dowling says: "We wanted, as far as possible, to give the student the context in which the language is used - socially, in business, at home - rather than the dry, analytical approach that still dominated the classroom".

"In each unit of the course, we introduce and develop characters with whom the student can identify. For instance, we have a whole sequence about personal relationships, you will witness a guy called Zolani trying to chat up a girl at a party". First, you see a video clip of Zolani talking to the girl; then you click with your mouse onto a textual representation of the conversation, and access background information about the grammar and vocabulary used. Using the mouse, there are questions to be answered about the exchange. Best of all, you can review these exchanges carefully, and produce your own responses. If your computer has a microphone, you can record your own pronunciation of the conversation, and translate it, and get immediate feedback on your progress. "How many real, live teachers have the time to do that properly in a classroom?"

The 40-hour teaching package has been snapped up by local schools, tertiary institutions, businesses and individuals in the first six months of its release and is having an effect internationally too. At a recent international conference on computer-assisted learning at the University of Melbourne, Australia, Dowling introduced Thetha isiXhosa Nathi to an interested audience from around the globe. Prof John Mugane, the vice-president of the African Language Teaching Association at Stanford University in the US, declared it "the best CD-ROM of its type" he had seen. And sales were brisk.

Now, Dowling and Dunckley are at work on their follow-up project, a CD-ROM devoted to teaching Zulu, the language spoken by more first language speakers than any other in the country. Dowling, who trained at UCT says that multimedia by itself is not a panacea for all of SA's educational ills "No-one can replace a dedicated teacher", she says, "and to make use of our programme a school must have a sophisticated computer network". But if it is outcome-based education we are looking for, programmes like this one are surely the way to go.