The Conversation, 18 February 2021
Over 2,000 languages are spoken in Africa, with multilingualism a common feature of everyday life. Across the continent, though, millions of school pupils aren’t taught in their mother tongue.
Zambia, for instance, is a country with a huge range of languages but just one official language: English. Intrigued by the disconnect between the languages spoken at home by children in Zambia and the English of their education, Alastair Cole, a lecturer in film practice at Newcastle University, and I set out to make a documentary about the linguistic experience of children in the classroom. Read more...