The Home-Language Project’s mission

The Home-Language Project’s (HLP’s) mission is to promote the use of home languages as an additional resource in multilingual classrooms, alongside English (or other agreed common classroom language).
 

Who are we?

The HLP was set up by the parents and School Governing Bodies of seven English-medium Gauteng state schools in 2000, to address the language disadvantage facing second-language learners in their schools. It is a registered Non-Profit, Public Benefit Organisation. 

Note: The announcement by the minister of basic education on 21 February 2024 of government’s intention to roll out Mother-Tongue-based Bilingual Education (MTbBE) in primary schools from the beginning of 2025, should shift our education system away from the one-classroom-one-language principle that has been a major factor contributing to learning disadvantage. This has made it possible for us to drop our advocacy role in this respect and refocus on the core of our mission. The Project is therefore proposing to change its name to The Multilingual Learning Project (MLLP) in the near future.)
 

What do we do?

We develop practical multilingual teaching methods, techniques and materials for use alongside English (or other agreed common classroom language).

We facilitate the testing of the above by supporting academic research into their implementation and involving teachers via classroom-action research.

We are currently piloting innovative early-grade reading methods for multilingual classrooms.

We conduct in-service training workshops for teachers in multilingual techniques, either in-house or in collaboration with teachers’ associations, irrespective of their union affiliation.

We support multilingual literacy in our member schools by facilitating their acquisition of multilingual library books and offering various reading programmes in African languages.

We promote the development of bilingual text materials (text books and electronic text) in all South African official languages.
 

How do we test our methods?

The testing of our multilingual methods is done by teachers in their own classrooms in the course of their normal teaching, with school management support. Teachers are encouraged to link their classroom action-research into post-graduate studies to extend their qualifications under the supervision of a recognised tertiary institution. We believe that every teacher and every school has a part to play in developing the kind of multilingual approach currently needed to provide effective education for all.
 

What makes the HLP unique?

Some of the features which make it unique:

• It was initiated by parents.
• Its emphasis from the outset has been on finding practical, cost-effective and affordable solutions to the language disadvantage of second-language learners (those whose language is different from the official classroom medium).
• It rejects the separation of learners into separate schools or streams on the basis of language, as being inimical to the need to promote national social cohesion and competencies for learners to thrive in a multilingual society.
• It uses learners’ existing communicative skills in their home languages as an extra resource alongside the official medium in teaching all subjects.
• It opens up the opportunity for second-language learners to benefit from the advantages of being able to use at least two working languages – the common language and their own home language/s.
• It does not require the teacher to be multilingual. While our techniques involve learners using different languages, teachers only use English in classrooms with three or more languages. Different techniques can be used in less linguistically complex situations, e.g. those that lend themselves to mother-tongue-based bilingual education approach.
• It can accommodate many different home languages and language variations in one classroom at the same time via our buddy system and bilingual materials in all official languages.
• It measures its effectiveness in terms of interim competencies (character, meta-learning and skills competencies), as well as performance outcomes (particularly in English, mathematics and science).
• Its approach is task-based, interactive and thinking-focused.
• It builds on and contributes to research data produced in collaboration with various academic institutions.
• It also promotes the development of two working languages for first-language learners and the need for all English or Afrikaans-speaking learners to learn to speak an indigenous African language with reasonable fluency.
• It represents a collaborative effort by a group of state schools to address a critical aspect of disadvantage in education, not just for the sake of their own learners but also for those in schools that lack the resources to experiment.
   

Target group

South Africa is a multilingual society in a multilingual world. Our target group consists of all learners in all types of schools, but particularly those whose home language is not the official classroom medium, including immigrants speaking other languages.
 

Track record

The evaluations and studies associated with the Project’s work (see below) reflect a significant contribution to finding solutions for second-language learners in monolingual systems and for the teaching of multilingual groups.

The following are available for inspection by interested parties:

• Multi-bilingualism in Foundation Phase Numeracy (Owen-Smith 2011). A 2-year pilot study (2005-2007) of a multilingual mathematics intervention.
• Witwatersrand University MSc dissertation based on the Project’s work - by Mampho Langa 2006.
• UNISA MA dissertation based on the Project’s work - by Wendy Rodseth 2005
• Evaluation report by The READ Organisation on the effects of an HLP intervention in the development of English Literacy at Roseneath Primary School 2004
• Executive Summary of the Human Sciences Research Council Report on factors promoting or inhibiting multilingualism in post-apartheid South African schools 20/08/2004
• Home-Language Project Evaluation Report by Herman Kotze and Jabu Mashinini 2002
   

Some notable achievements

• The demonstration in a two-year study (2005 – 2007) of how to successfully teach mathematics using multi-bilingual methods.
• The demonstration in 2004 (independently evaluated by the READ Organisation) that a minimal amount of home-language recognition and support, using the HLP’s model, had a significantly positive influence on the acquisition of English literacy in three Foundation-Phase research classes.
• The HSRC report in 2004 that ranked the HLP as the only multilingual organisation they observed that reached as far as the 3rd Quadrant in their set of typologies of multilingual practice (ranging from weak to utopian).
• The collection and distribution of a library of books in nine African languages to the learners in all of our member schools.
• Annual reading and writing competitions for learners in all our African languages.
• An extended reading programme in African languages has been run successfully in our member schools since 2005. Without the Project’s intervention, thousands of these children would never have learnt to read in their own languages.