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The Rhodesia Herald,
February 11 2022
RHODESIA is becoming “language conscious” with businessmen, housewives, secretaries and schoolchildren learning Italian, German, Spanish, French and Portuguese, the principal of the Institute of Languages, Mr SH Babayan said yesterday.
A sign of the country’s mounting interest in languages is the fact that this year the institute has doubled its enrolment compared with last year.
More than 400 people of all ages and from all walks of life have enrolled for the eight languages that the institute teaches.
These are Portuguese, German, Afrikaans, Shona, English, French, Italian and Spanish. Because of the great demand from housewives for Shona, a crash course during morning hours has been organised by the institute, said Mr Babayan.
Nineteen percent of the institute’s language students take Portuguese. The second most popular language is Afrikaans (17 percent), followed by Shona (16 percent), German (15 percent), French (11 percent), English 8 percent), Italian and Spanish (7 percent).
Last year Mr Babayan organised courses for eight students of Hebrew and three students of Arabic.
All language classes being run by the institute this year are full and there are waiting lists for the courses, which start in the middle of the year.
The courses last for six months and by then students have an 80 percent speaking proficiency in the language, Mr Babayan said.
The institute also runs English, French and Afrikaans courses for GCE pupils. Last year 225 schoolchildren enrolled and this year Mr. Babayan predicts that the 300 mark will be topped.
Places for GCE pupils are reserved and unlike the other language classes the pupils write exams in their languages.
Within 24 hours of an additional demand for language courses the institute can double its faculties, said Mr Babayan.
The average male adult who goes to the institute is over 30 and is learning a language for business reasons.
Sixty percent of the institute’s enrolment is male, said Mr Babayan. The average woman is the “under-30 secretary who has ambitions of going to Europe,” he said.
Mr Ken Mew, principal of Ranche House College, said that this year the college had enrolled a substantially greater number of people doing full-time Shona. There has been a slight increase in the number of people talking German and Portuguese but otherwise there has been no significant change over last year, he said.
The college runs courses in Shona, French, Germany, Portuguese and Afrikaans.
LESSONS FOR TODAY
- The study of other languages is increasingly becoming important in the country with schools taking a proactive approach on the issue.
- Learners from as early as ECD are learning basic words for languages like French with the level of studying going up a notch depending on the level of education.
- There is need for more schools to take up the teaching of other languages, especially the public institutions since the teaching of most foreign languages is still largely restricted to private schools.
- The study of other languages can be very beneficial in a number of ways, it can act as a career path for people who want to work as interpreters while in some instances it can give one the edge during some job interviews especially for multinational organisations that have a worldwide presence and employ people from different nationalities.- The fact that other nations are willing to learn our language should teach us to respect and be proud of our languages. Most of the children especially those in primary schools are struggling to read and write their vernacular language yet they are very proficient in foreign languages like English. The Government through the education sector should take a proactive approach to address this by taking a leaf from countries like Botswana who are very proud of their language.
Online Reporter