Lost in translation

Today I have been back with Grade 2 children teaching them how to tell the time. Their general reading and writing is quite good, they just won't listen. The teacher believes that because they are so used to noise and overcrowding at home they bring that noise to the classroom. The children are so approachable and the teachers are nice as well. Out of a 6 hour day, the children only get 35 minutes of break time and this may contribute to their bad behaviour, although it doesn't explain the chaos at the start of each day!



One problem I have encountered is the fact that the children are quite hard to understand at times and on occasions I have to ask for something to be repeated several times in order to comprehend. Because most of these kids are speaking both English and Afrikaans at home, it makes it difficult along with their heavy accents. For example, many have asked me 'where do you live', but it sounds exactly like 'who do you love?'

Recently I sat in on an Afrikaans lesson which highlighted the language problem in South Africa. There are 11 recognised languages and although most of the children could speak Afrikaans, one or two could only speak limited English and mainly Xhosa. These Xhosa-speaking children struggle greatly with Afrikaans and are a long way behind with the language. They find it upsetting and frustrating that they cannot speak Afrikaans, which is an important language in Cape Town. The worrying thing for me though is that there is no time or staff available to help them to catch up and as a result the Afrikaans-speaking children are asked to help the Xhosa-speakers to catch up. How can this possibly be adequate to bring them up to speed?

On a lighter note, before Jannes left he used to refer to the two Norwegian surfers he knew as 'Team Norway.' Likewise, myself and Callum became 'Team Britain'...so with a pen and a disposable camera we created a sign for our bedroom door: