The implications of bilingualism in learning and teaching: the case of Tanzania secondary schools

This study aimed to investigate the context and the interactive patterns of bilingual practices in secondary school classrooms. It further aimed to measure the students' academic achievement in physics tests conducted in English, Kiswahili and in both English and Kiswahili to see in which medium they would achieve better. The manner in which the teaching was carried out using these languages was also examined. The study was conducted in four science secondary schools; two in Dar-es salaam (Makongo and Zanaki) and the other two in Kilimanjaro Umbwe and Uru). Makongo and Uru were control schools while Umbwe and Zanaki were experimental. The four schools were distinguished by various variables, such as rural / urban, single- sex / co-educational with good performance) poor performance and private/ public. Data for the study were collected using ethnographic observations, interviews, questionnaires, documentary reviews and achievement tests. As regards the first aim, the findings showed that there were pervasive code alternations in the physics classrooms. Using the analytic conversational framework grounded in ethnographic observation, it was noted that code switching was purposeful and patterned, contrary to the popularly held view that the practice was a sign of laziness, a waste of time and a source of embarrassment. Code switching was strategically exploited by the physics teacher as a communicative resource. A change of discourse function in the classroom was signaled by a series of shifts from English to Kiswahili and back to English. Yet, classroom language alternation was not seen as a distinguishable variant of CS. When the corpus was placed against Auer's bilingual speech continuum (CS-LM-FL), it was found out that CS was still at the beginning of the continuum because the contrast between Kiswahili and English was not only meaningful to the participants but also had discourse related functions. While ambivalence was confirmed in the study, bivalency was not. Responses from interviews and questionnaires varied considerably. For example, while a bigger percentage of the interviewees argued in favour of bilingual practices in the classroom, the rest indicated that the practice would impair the students' academic achievement. On the choice of an effective teaching medium, the general view was that switching completely to Kiswahili as a medium of instruction in post primary levels would just create more problems. Concerning students' academic achievement in tests conducted in English, Kiswahili and in both English and Kiswahili, statistical computations revealed that there was positive correlation (P< 0.01) between any pair of tests. Recommendations include gradually introducing bilingual programmes to Form one classes and the encouragement of tolerance of code switching in spoken and written discourse in both classroom activities and in final examinations. This encouragement should be reflected in official language policy, which can make use of the synergy which has been created by the two languages in the classrooms rather than treating English and Kiswahili as separate hostile entities, so that their combined effect becomes greater than the sum of their individual effects