Challenges faced by learners and teachers in the teaching and learning of Setswana home language

Abstract

This paper investigates the challenges faced Setswana Home language teachers and Setswana home language leanersin two high schools in Pretoria. These schools offer Setswana Home Language, this means that learners enrolled in these schools must do Setswana as home language.The problem is that leaners who are enrolled in these schools are coming from all parts of Winterveldt , and from all languages and these schools do not offer all African languages. They only have Setswana. xi Tsonga, Venda, Nguni and Southern Sotho students are forced to do Setswana as Home Language. These leaners never acquired Setswana in their lives; this is their first encounter with it. They lack knowledge of Setswana, as much as they can understand it spoken. They cannot write and read it. In this situation teachersare expected to perform miracles in ensuring that these learners learn Setswana in a very short period. The study was conducted at twoprimary schools where 20 participants were selected from Grade 3 and two Setswana educators from each school. The study employed a qualitative method, two focus groups consisting of 5learners each from each school and four Setswana educators were interviewed. Similarly, class observations, and text analysis were also used to collect the data.It was found that most learners donot pass Setswana. This poor scholastic result can be attributed and ascribed to Sepitori, especially Sepitori and also lacking prior knowledge of the language. It is evident that Sepitoripose a serious threat to language, Setswana in particular because they interfere with the standard language.The study findings provided insights to the Department of Education about the challenges that Setswana L1 learners encountered that prevented them from excelling in Setswana HL at high schools due to lack of prior language knowledge.Based on the findings the following recommendations can be made:Schools that only offer Setswana as home language they must only enrol Setswana L1 learners, Teachers must not code switch to other languages in Setswana classes when learners do not understand.