Breaking down language barriers
How the University of Cape Town is trying to help students that speak indigenous languages of South Africa
Hello, my good human! I am Lefteris and this is my newsletter from the world of science and academia. You can subscribe by pressing this sexy little button below
Let’s jump into today’s story…
I love education. The time I spent in school gave me a lot of tools that I believe are invaluable for day-to-day life. And I know that not everyone learns the same way, and formal education isn’t for everyone. But I still think, everyone in the world should still have the opportunity to access formal education. The latest numbers I can find from Unesco inform me that 244 million children between the ages of 6 and 18 are not in school [source]. When it comes to higher education (i.e. Universities) information I could find from a World Bank study states that in Latin America and the Caribbean, on average, the poorest 50% of the population only represented 25% of tertiary education students in 2013 [source]. According to the same study, when it comes to Sub-Saharan Africa only 9% of students that finish secondary school attend university.
Of course, the reasons for the above statistics are multiple and complex. Tuition fees are too expensive, military conflicts or other socioeconomic realities might force some people to spend their time supporting their families rather than going to school, and language barriers that also exist in areas where multiple languages and dialects co-exist are just some of the reasons I can think of on the top of my head. There are of course organizations and people that are working tirelessly to tear down those barriers but the problems are global and systemic.
I try to not add to the bleakness with this newsletter and look at the solutions that are being offered around the world but the above was just some information for all of us to have a basis. This week I came across the “Multilingual Glossaries Project” from the University of Cape Town and I thought it was a very cool idea that I wanted to share with you. As always you can find more detailed information from the website of the project linked above and I will just try here to summarize their work as best I can.
Learning in your Second Language
I don’t know how many of you have attended University, but when I went to university, I was lucky enough that all of my classes were in my native language. Greek universities were teaching in Greek, and because my mother was born in the US when I started my PhD in Singapore I had basically no problems understanding what I was reading or what I was being taught. It was a privilege I didn’t realize I had until I started meeting people who weren’t as fluent in English as I was. This creates a barrier to understanding and makes the whole process of… attending a university class a little bit more complicated. I am curious to learn about you so why don’t you answer my question below?
This experience is more of a routine for black students in South Africa who attend university and do classes in English, which is not their first language. There are studies like the one from Van Wig & Torres in 2021 that showed that non-native English speakers often struggle with college success and attrition. It is logical to expect non-native-speaking students to struggle with vocabulary, grammar and of course, writing academic essays.
A key metric of success for universities is the success of their students after they graduate, so it stands to reason that they would try to do as much as they can to give students all the tools they require to succeed. And this is how we reach the glossaries from the University of Cape Town.
As simple as a Glossary
Sometimes the solution isn’t something too complicated. Something as simple as a glossary can provide enough help to students to “compete” in a more even playing field. The Multilingual Glossaries Project from the University of Cape Town aims to create glossaries in different disciplines of the university but the first glossary that was completed was from the Mechanical Engineering department. The glossary provides the word and definition in English and translates it to IsiXhosa which is an official language in South Africa.
This might sound like something that should have happened years ago or something that it’s super easy but as the directors of the Multilingualism Education Project, Professor Lolie Makhubu-Badenhorst said: “…in the past when we developed terms, we would keep them to ourselves because they were not authenticated by the Pan South African Language Board (PanSALB). They are now authenticated and verified and now we can disseminate them.”[source]
I never understood how much of a big deal this is until I read from a Unesco Policy Paper that 40% of the global population doesn’t have access to education in their native language [source]. And as the policy paper very succinctly asks: “If you don’t understand how can you learn?”.
You can access the glossary here. I hope with this newsletter you also see some discrepancies in the way information is shared and how not everyone begins from the same starting point as anyone else. Let me know your thoughts in the comments below or by any other way you see fit.
Any more news?
People in academia are constantly coming up with new and exciting things so if you need more to quench your curiosity here are some more headlines.
Vampire bats make northward flight seeking stable climates, by ScienceDaily
Study elucidates how ionizing radiation damages DNA, by Agencia FAPESP
Don’t Forget: Discovering new things about the deepest parts of the ocean
That’s all for this week! I hope that the rest of the week will be calm and rewarding. Did you like this newsletter? If you did you can subscribe to it at the top of the page and why not share it around using this sexy little button here
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This was really interesting and I enjoyed the post!