EDITORIAL
LITERACY PROGRAMMES DESIGNED IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE NEW CURRICULUM ASSESSMENT POLICY STATEMENT
ARTICLE BY THE MOLTENO INSTITUTE FOR LANGUAGE AND LITERACY “
The Molteno Institute for Language and Literacy has welcomed government’s move to introduce a new education policy state- ment aimed at helping teachers to do their jobs more effec- tively.
Molteno says the draft Curriculum Assessment Policy State- ment (CAPS), as a clear articulation of the curriculum in terms of the standards it requires, gives teachers a thorough frame- work for exactly what they should be teaching and achieving in the classroom on a daily basis.
“It’s a real stamp of approval for us that, for some time now, we’ve been promoting the approach that is being adopted by CAPS,” says Molteno’s Research and Development Manager, Dr Paula Gains. “This includes our belief in the importance of the introduction of a first additional language in the founda- tional grades, providing that teaching in the home language is maintained.”
At the same time, Molteno has announced that its busy realign- ing its literacy courses, already in use by teachers around the country, seeking to ensure they’re included in the approved list of resource books that are deemed by the education depart- ment to be in alignment with CAPS’ requirements.
Both courses are designed to support teachers, particularly those in undertrained, under-resourced situations, whose first language is not English. The materials, based on rigorous ap- plied linguistics research, have been developed and continu- ously improved over many years.
“Our Breakthrough to Literacy programme is a very powerful mother tongue literacy programme that gets people reading meaningful sentences right from the beginning of their learn- ing,” says Gains, explaining that it’s based on a language expe- rience approach that’s particularly effective in the phonically regular African languages. (The course is available in all the official African languages.)
“By the middle of the year on our programme, children in Grade One are able to read and understand a range of texts beyond the graded readers and write better than their peers.”
The Bridge to English programme enables the effective intro- duction of English from Grade One. The education department announced earlier this year that it would introduce English as a first additional language for non-English speakers from next year.
“A major problem is that most teachers, who are not comfort- able in English themselves, are expected to teach, without hav- ing had training in first additional language teaching,” she says.
As a non-governmental organisation, Molteno is committed to making a difference in the classroom with materials and teacher training that are demonstrated to have a real impact.
“As a non-profit organisation, our only objective is to provide the very best quality in terms of learner materials and teacher support Gains concludes. “That’s why we spend time develop- ing materials that are based on research and aligned with good teaching principles.”
” 136 CHAPTER 7 | THE TEACHER AND THE TEACHING CAREER
www.ed.org.za
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123