Back in 2013 the Zambian Government changed the national curriculum so that the language of instruction within all schools should be a child’s local language up to and including Grade 4, after which, all schooling and exams should continue in English.
Although I see the benefit of children learning to read and write in a language that they speak fluently, this move has caused many complications here, largely due to there being 72 local languages.
Getting resources in the local language has been far from straightforward, to the point where we’ve needed to produce our own reading books to help our students learn the fundamentals of reading.
Thankfully, that was around the same time we became aware of A-Z learning, which have an online library with thousands of printable books on offer to download. We’ve been working with some local linguists to translate the first few levels, which help students transition from emergent to independent reader.
With the permission of the lovely people at A-Z learning, we have been making dual language versions (Bemba* and English) of their titles which children can then use when first learning to read in Bemba, but can also use the same books again when learning to read in English.
We trialled this is some classes this term and hope to launch some sustainable libraries in our schools in early 2017.
*Bemba is spoken across the Copperbelt where all our partner schools are based.
*Bemba is spoken across the Copperbelt where all our partner schools are based.
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