Newsletter October - version 8wesknight.com/renafrica.org/site/wp-content/...October 2013 • Issue 2, volume 7 • !!!!! Applied!Linguistics!and!Literacy!!...

October 2013 • Issue 2, volume 7 • www.renafrica.org

Applied Linguistics and Literacy in Africa and the Diaspora

An AILA Research Network www.aila.info

EDITORIAL BOARD EDITOR: Juliet Tembe (In-‐Country Coordinator, The African Storybook Project/SAIDE) [email protected]

EAST AFRICA COORDINATORS: Juliet Tembe (In-‐Country Coordinator, The African Storybook Project/SAIDE) [email protected] Jacinta Ndambuki, (University of the Witwatersrand) [email protected] Willy Ngaka (University of KwaZulu-‐Natal) [email protected]

WEST AFRICA COORDINATORS: Dipo Salami, (Obafemi Awolowo University) [email protected] Kate Adoo-‐Adeku (University of Ghana) FRANCOPHONE COORDINATOR: JeDene Reeder (SIL International/Simon Fraser University) [email protected]

SOUTHERN AFRICA COORDINATORS: Gregory Kamwendo, (University of Botswana) [email protected] Violet Lunga, (University of Botswana) [email protected]

ADVISOR: Bonny Norton (University of British Columbia) [email protected]

WEBMASTER: Espen Stranger-‐Johannessen (University of British Columbia) [email protected]

Editor’s Comment Dear ReN Africa Members, Welcome to the second edition of the 2013 newsletter of the Research Network on Applied Linguistics and Literacy in Africa and the Diaspora. This issue comes soon after the Pan-‐African Reading for All Conference held in Nairobi, and before the upcoming Language and Development Conference in Cape Town. Both these two conferences bring to the fore hotly debated issues in language education in Africa. The articles by Willy Ngaka and Espen Stranger-‐Johannessen highlight the presentations during the Pan-‐African conference in Nairobi. On the other hand, the Language and Development Conference will focus on language use in development contexts and the impact/contributions on development goals beyond 2015. In this issue you will also find news and information on upcoming events and conferences. Of particular interest is the SAIDE/African storybook colloquium jointly organized by Bonny Norton (Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies, UBC) and Tessa Welch (South Africa Institute for Distance Education). We hope to meet as ReN Africa members during these events to chat out a new path for our newsletter. As you might have observed, we have begun the process of giving the newsletter a new ‘look’ as well as a new ‘inside’. I hope you will enjoy reading this issue and we welcome your feedback on any aspect of the newsletter. With best regards,

Yours,

Juliet Tembe, Editor

Applied Linguistics and Literacy in Africa and the Diaspora: www.renafrica.org

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October 2013 Member Profile Dr. George L. Openjuru, one of the AILE award winners for 2005, is currently the Dean of the School of Distance and Lifelong Learning, College of Education and External Studies, Makerere University. He is an Associate Professor of Adult and Community Education. His area of specialization and research is adult literacy education, Lifelong Learning, and Community University Engagement, and he holds a PhD in adult education with specific focus on adult literacy education from the University of KwaZulu-‐Natal. He has published articles in the area of adult literacy education, lifelong learning, Higher Education. He teaches the following courses at post-‐graduate level: Adult literacy studies, Theories and philosophy in adult and community education, Policy studies in adult and community education, Adult Education and Community Development. In addition to teaching, as part of his University community outreach activities he is active in supporting all the civil society organizations that are engaged in the promotion of adult education in Uganda and he is the current Chairperson of Uganda Adult Education Network (UgaAdEN). Openjuru has coordinated a number of projects in the area of adult literacy, including the LETTER (Literacy for Empowerment through Training in Ethnographic Research) project in Uganda. He is part of an international team experimenting with a social practice approach to adult literacy education worldwide. The other project funded by DFID through the British Council Uganda is: Entrepreneurship Literacies for non-‐literate out of school youths in Uganda in collaboration with Mountain of the Moon University. He was involved with youth entrepreneurship and employability training in collaboration with Leeds Metropolitan University in the UK. Openjuru has published a lot in the area of Adult Literacy, Higher Education and Community Engagement. His list of publications and citations can be obtained from mak.academia.edu/GeorgeLadaahOpenjuru/Papers. Upcoming Conferences and Events SAIDE’s African Storybook Project: Research for social change colloquium The colloquium is organised by Bonny Norton of the Department of Language and Literacy Education, UBC, currently a Distinguished Scholar in Residence at the PWIAS, with Tessa Welch, Project Leader of Saide’s African Storybook Project. Sessions will also be led by Ephraim Mhlunga of Saide and Mastin Prinsloo, University of Cape Town. The colloquium will introduce the African Storybook Project, its stories and its pilot sites (Uganda, Kenya, and South Africa), as well as other African, Canadian, and international partners. Representatives will include 40 participants from 6 African countries, 10 universities, and 5 research and development projects. The colloquium will provide a basis for the development of a collaborative research framework for the project. This framework will help to ensure that findings from relevant research both within Africa and in the international community can be harnessed to promote the success and


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sustainability of this important and groundbreaking educational initiative. See also "In the field" below. africanstorybookproject.pwias.ubc.ca Dates: 17–19 October, 2013 Venue: Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study (STIAS), Stellenbosch, South Africa Public presentation

Date: Friday, October 18, 3:30pm–5:00pm Auditorium, Wallenberg Research Centre, STIAS. Reception to follow. ALL WELCOME! Download poster here. The University of the Western Cape is hosting the 6th International Linguistic Landscapes Conference featuring ‘Hope and Precarity’ In 2014, the 6th Linguistic Landscapes International Workshop will be organized by the University of Western Cape in Cape Town, South Africa. The three-‐day workshop/conference will be held from 9th to 11th April 2014, with optional city tours made available on the second day of the conference. LL6 will be hosted at two venues, both at the beautiful Two Oceans Aquarium in the V&A Waterfront and at the historical University of the Western Cape. The general theme of the workshop will be ‘Hope and Precarity’. This theme is relevant given the last decade's global developments that have accelerated large-‐scale migration and the spread of communication technologies. Collectively, these global developments are having demonstrable effects on the social, cultural, educational, political, economic, religious, and ethical structures, from remote communities to multi-‐country political-‐economic blocs. The conference theme is especially important for emerging nations and contexts on the periphery of the global economy. We therefore focus on how linguistic landscapes reflect, index and contrast these themes, their power semiotics across a broad range of societal arena.


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In order to keep to the original format of previous linguistic landscapes workshops there will be a limited number of paper presentations (approximately 30) as well as one plenary poster session. The first call for abstracts is 5 September 2013 and the deadline for the second call is 15 October 2013. Notification of acceptance will be sent by 10th November 2013. REGISTRATION IS OPEN! linguisticlandscapes6.co.za

1st International Conference of the African Virtual University (AVU) The AVU was initially launched in Washington in 1997 as a World Bank project and was later transferred to Kenya in 2002. The AVU become an Intergovernmental organization in 2003. The theme of the first conference is: Integrating eLearning and Open Education to Increase Access to Quality Education and Training in Africa. Dates: November 20–22, 2013 City: Nairobi, Kenya (venue TBA)

Seventh Pan-‐Commonwealth Forum on Open Learning (PCF7) Commonwealth Of Learning’s (COL) Seventh Pan-‐Commonwealth Forum on Open Learning (PCF7) will be held in Abuja, Nigeria from 2 – 6 December 2013, in partnership with the Federal Ministry of Education and the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN). The Forum will address “Open Learning for Development: Towards Empowerment and Transformation” through five themes: “Girls’ and Women’s Education”, “Skills Development”, “Promoting Open Educational Resources (OER)”, “Innovation and Technology” and “Institutional Development”. pcf7.net/home Reports from conferences and other events IRA Retools African Literacy Leaders to Boost Efforts towards Literacy for All in Africa Dr. Willy Ngaka, University of KwaZulu-Natal August 8–16, 2013 was yet another landmark in the history of the African Continent as IRA brought together global literacy leaders to discuss issues of Education For All with a view to translating them to Literacy For All under the 8th Pan African Reading For All conference. The Continental Event which featured the theme Literacy for All: Leading the way to literacy excellence was hosted by the Association of Reading of Kenya (ARK) in the University of Nairobi, Science Campus, from August 12–16, 2013.


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One important aspect of this event was the African Literacy Leaders’ Leadership Training IRA and its development partners spearheaded as a pre-conference activity from August 9–11, 2013 at the magnificent East Land Hotel in Nairobi, Kenya. The literacy leadership training attracted 39 participants representing 17 African countries, namely: Botswana, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Mali, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The purpose of the literacy leadership training was to re-examine the current literacy efforts and status in order to lay strategies for enhancing literacy and education for all beyond the 2015 deadline. The training, led by a brilliant and very talented literacy expert, Amy Pallangyo, deliberately focused on a comprehensive analysis of the various MDGs with special emphasis on post-2015 outcomes. Other important topics covered in the training included: effective professional development, dos and don’ts of professional development, making and strengthening pre-service and in-service teacher education, IRA awards and grants, grants proposal writing and management of grants, etc. Towards the end of the training, the enthusiastic participants vowed to return to their respective countries to put the new skills acquired and knowledge gained into practice to complement the global efforts towards attaining literacy for all. Participants made plans to embark on two areas, namely: Strengthening teacher–school–community relations on the one hand, and ascertaining the current relationship between teachers and pre-service institutions and the work of each participant’s organization on the other. With the new tools, skills, and knowledge the delegates were equipped with, there is nothing better than saying “thank you” to IRA and its development partners for all the benefits accruing from this training such as the new networks delegates created to promote literacy and possibilities of accessing resources to implement their literacy programme proposals in their respective countries. This gives us an opportunity to see rays of hope for improvement in reading culture and literacy rates in Africa. About the author: Dr. Willy Ngaka, currently a postdoctoral fellow with University of KwaZulu-Natal, coordinates Makerere University Centre for Lifelong Learning and lectures in the Department of Adult and Community Education. He is the founder of Uganda Rural Literacy and Community Development Association (URLCODA) working in North-Western Uganda. Report from the 8th Pan African Reading For All Conference in Nairobi, August 2013 Espen Stranger-‐Johannessen, University of British Columbia Every two years the Pan African Reading for All conference is organized in different African countries. This year the University of Nairobi hosted the conference, which took place from 12th


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to 16th August. Although there were a number of sub-‐themes and presentations on numerous topics, some of these drew a larger number of presentations than others. The language question in education is particularly important – and contested – in Africa, where French/English sometimes are pitted against local languages (including regional languages like Swahili). Emphasis on mother tongue instruction in the early grades is strong among researchers, and this was reflected in the conference program. But there are still challenges at the policy level, and not least with convincing parents and other stakeholders of the benefits of mother tongue instruction, as well as the scarcity of materials in the multitude of African languages. A related topic was the challenge of producing textbooks and other reading materials. One interesting response to this is the African Storybook Project, an initiative by South African Institute for Distance Education (SAIDE) to collect and disseminate children's stories through a website, www.africanstorybook.org (see also "In the field" below). Similarly, several other presentations showed the potential of digital media to support literacy, from computer labs to cell phone novellas. For more information, please see uonbi.ac.ke/node/531 About the author: Espen Stranger-‐Johannessen is a PhD student in the department of Language and Literacy Education at the University of British Columbia, and the webmaster of ReN Africa. Report of the Annual Meeting of the Language in Africa SIG of the British Association for Applied Linguistics (BAAL) 28 June 2013, Edge Hill University, UK The theme of this year’s Annual Meeting was ‘Language as communicative practice in African and African diasporic contexts’. Language in education is often a prominent theme in SIG meetings, so this year we aimed to provide more space for studies in the development of African languages in the rapidly changing contexts of global communication. The emphasis on ‘diaspora’ attracted speakers working across continents. Our opening guest speaker was Dr Amoafi Kwapong, a Ghanaian storyteller and educationalist who specialises in language and culture in education. She has been researching for the ESRC project, Becoming Literate in Faith Settings (BeLiFS) at Goldsmiths, University of London. She has studied four Ghanaian families who attend a Pentecostal church in London, focussing on what children are doing outside formal schooling that may support their learning – especially through the literacy practices within their church. In ‘Ways of Communicating in Ghanaian cultural and faith settings’ she showed a fascinating clip of two children engaging in ‘Call and Response’ – a method of learning Bible stories through song, with one child giving the context and the other responding with the content. The BeLiFS website is gold.ac.uk/clcl. Bomiegha Ayomoto from Nigeria is studying at Goldsmiths. Her topic is the decline in the use of the Ijaw language, a major language of the Niger Delta, and the reasons for the failure of intergenerational transmission. She has noted that in Nigeria English is being used even in cultural ceremonies such as weddings, and pidgin English has taken firm root through


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migrations. She is now studying adolescents from Ijaw families in the UK, and their use of language as marker of individual and cultural identity. [email protected]. Dr Charles Tante, University of Buea, Cameroon, and University of Warwick, is investigating the divergence of non-‐verbal modes of social communication practices in the diaspora from those in Africa. He gave examples of the use of food as signals during the development of a love relationship in Africa, and the adaptations amongst Cameroonians in the UK. In the context of taboo incidents, he asked what might be the deeper significance for how Africans construct their cosmography. [email protected]. The theme of rapid cultural and language change was continued by Dr Ross Graham, University of Coventry, and Rashioh Koroma, who has been studying at the University of Warwick. Sierra Leone has been through many migrational changes, the most recent being emigration due to the civil war. In ‘Trans-‐local diasporic influences on Krio language and identity’ they reported on the rapidly changing language of young Sierra Leonians in UK contexts, and the role of digital music media. [email protected]. Two speakers challenged assumptions concerning the stability of traditional language forms in Africa. Jill Karlik, who has recently completed a doctorate at the University of Leeds, provided insight into problems in developing orthographies through her work in Guinea-‐Bissau. By demonstrating the varied realisation of nasals in Manjaku, and the difficulty for mother-‐tongue speakers in perceiving the presence of homorganic nasals, she showed how orthographies can be contentious, and a shallow orthography does not necessarily make reading easy. Professor Lutz Marten from SOAS provoked thoughts on what we mean by ‘authentic texts’ in recording African languages. He demonstrated how in transcribing texts for a major database, some alterations can occur. He traced the use of the proto-‐Kiswahili prefix ‘ag’, showing how it may now be returning through the local media and language play. The meeting was completed with a Forum led by Professor Joseph Garafanga of Edinburgh University, ‘Living Bilingually’. Through his research in code-‐switching he has come to challenge some of the foundational concepts, for example, that ‘language’ is equated with ‘code’. He asked whether new terms like ‘languaging’ are really necessary – do they relate to a new concept or lens? Do languages reflect social structure, or do languages structure society? And in use of the term ‘linguistic competences’ – are these competences people actually have, or are governments also ascribing language competences, for example French in Rwanda, for their own convenience? Next year’s meeting is likely to be in London in May. For more information closer to the time, please contact the SIG secretary, Annette Islei [email protected], and keep an eye on the SIG site: www.LIASIG.wordpress.com (the link is under Applied Linguistics in renafrica.org).


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In the field The African Storybook Project The goal of Saide’s African Storybook Project is to contribute to improved literacy of children throughout Africa by developing a comprehensive digital library of openly licensed stories in multiple languages for early reading of African children, as well as tools to facilitate access to and use of these stories in schools and communities. The project will conduct pilots in rural and urban sites across Kenya, Uganda, Lesotho and South Africa. A dedicated African Storybook website is currently under construction and will be ready in early 2014 where you will be able to:

• find enjoyable stories for children to read, • translate them into a local language or

dialect, • adapt the stories for the reading level you

need, • create your own stories in one of the

templates provided, • upload them onto the website for others to engage with and use, • download and print the stories or read them on a variety of devices.

Publications New journal: Multilingual Margins Journal The journal Multilingual Margins wishes to comprise an intellectual project that seeks to understand the ramifications for theories of language, mind, and society of the diversities of multilingualism in unequal, evolving and connected transnational sites of the South. To a large extent, contemporary understandings of language, multilingualism and speech community remain reliant on analytical frameworks inherited from a colonial and modernist epistemology and ontology of language. Multilingual Margins aspires to deliver incisive theorizations that critically deconstruct ways of talking about language and multilingualism that emanate from the Center. It seeks to provide a forum for the emergence of alternative discourses of multilingualism rooted in close (historiographical) accounts of local language practices and ideologies of the translocal and entangled communities of the political South. To the extent that margins are productive spaces of annotation and commentary on the body or main theme of a text, an approach to multilingualism from the geopolitical margin promises also to contribute to reflection and afterthought, and to new epistemological approaches to language formulated in the Center. Authors are invited to submit articles that are based on original research in the field of multilingualism, and that will


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promote interdisciplinary comment and interaction around analyses of multilingualism on the margin and the way these speak to Center analyses. The editorial committee of Multilingual Margins will guarantee that all articles submitted will benefit from a rigorous international peer-‐review process. The journal encourages submissions in English and other languages living on the margins as occasion may arise. Multilingual Margins accepts the publication of research and conference reports, research notes, state-‐of-‐the-‐art dialogues, book reviews and other expressive genres. Review and Associate Editor: Quentin E. Williams, University of the Western Cape. www.uwc.ac.za/Faculties/ART/LIS/Pages/New-‐Journal.aspx Email: [email protected] Roberts, David (2013): Parlons kabiyè Harmattan, Paris. May 2013, 362 pages. 34.20 € (book) and 27 € (pdf). Kabiye is spoken by about a million people in the hills to the north of Kara, Togo, as well as in a large diaspora that has spread to the centre and south of the country and elsewhere in the world. This book is all about Kabiye language and culture. It is intended for French speakers who want to learn Kabiye, and Kabiye people themselves who want to learn how to read and write their mother tongue. It will be of interest to linguists wanting a handy description of the language, and also to anthropologists who want a summary of the culture. nyiniyu.com/?en_new-‐publications,51 Roberts, David (2013): La conjugaison des verbes en kabiyè (Togo): Tableaux types, règles d’emploi et index kabiyè-‐français et français-‐kabiyè des verbes Harmattan, Paris. July 2013, 343 pages. 36 € (book) This book presents the verb conjugations of Kabiye, a language spoken by about 23% of the population of Togo. Verb conjugations are one of the biggest challenges for anyone wanting to learn Kabiye, partly because it is a tone language. This book it is written in the standard orthography adopted by the Kabiye National Language Committee (CLNK) with the addition of accents to indicate the tones. The main part of the book presents 27 model verbs, most of which have 97 conjugations each. This is followed by two indexes, Kabiye–French and French–Kabiye, which list 810 verbs in their imperative and infinitive forms. Each entry in the indexes cross-‐references to one of the model verbs. In this way, the reader can work out the pronunciation, spelling and meaning of any verb conjugation. nyiniyu.com/?en_new-‐publications,51


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Postdoctoral work Centre for Multilingualism and Diversities Research University of the Western Cape, South Africa The Centre for Multilingualism and Diversities Research (CMDR) would like to invite scholars to apply for a shorter or longer postdoctoral bursary to contribute to the work of the Centre in critically interrogating notions of multilingualism within a diversities framework. Two types of postdoctoral scholarships are available at the present moment.

(a) A bursary of shorter duration (2-‐3 months) available immediately (including travel and accommodation)

(b) A bursary funded by the South African National Research Foundation (an NRF Freestanding Postdoctoral Scholarships), with an application deadline for 16 September for funding in 2014 (with a possible extension).

A newly established unit, the central brief of the Center for Multilingualism and Diversities Research (CMDR) is to critically revisit and explore the reconstitution of the areas of language, literature and cultural studies from the vantage point/perspective of the global South, specifically South Africa within the conceptual and methodological framework of multilingualism and diversities research. A cohort of postgraduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and academics engaged with the new research centre, seek to establish an intellectual space to further a critical rethinking of what kinds of questions we should be asking of language, both strengthening existing interdisciplinary projects or leading to new ones, and also enabling challenging questions to be asked of disciplines and departments themselves. This means foregrounding notions of multilingualism as an epistemological frame and methodological imperative as essential for an extended critical engagement with studies of language, literature and culture. The task is to interrogate ideas of multilingualism from the vantage point of the South by providing a careful historiography of linguistic diversity and a critical analysis of contemporary deliberation on multilingualism across academia and society at large. This is a project of intellectual reorientation that promises significant rethinking of multilingualism and a new discourse with which to approach interdisciplinary work in the humanities and the education sciences. Application link: https://nrfsubmission.nrf.ac.za/ Contact for further information: [email protected], [email protected], or [email protected] Tell us about your research! Send us a short profile (one paragraph) of the research you are undertaking on language or literacy education in Africa by March 1, 2014, for inclusion in our next issue.

Newsletter October - version 8wesknight.com/renafrica.org/site/wp-content/...October 2013 • Issue 2, volume 7 • !!!!! Applied!Linguistics!and!Literacy!!...

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