Making sense of architectural ‘language’: implications for success in teaching and learning for ECP students at CPUT

Abstract

Overarching aspirations are relevant and noteworthy for our purpose, as outlined in one of the fundamental recommendations for investing in indigenous African languages and multilingual education, spearheaded by the Unesco Institute for Lifelong Learning (Quane & Glanz, 2010:10-11). These aspirations include these: Increase access to learning and information, and make teaching effective by lifting the language barrier, using the languages mastered by the learners, using socio-culturally relevant curricula, further developing African languages for academic use, training teachers in dealing with multilingualism and cultural diversity as well as language and literacy development, and by providing appropriate teaching and learning materials. The combination of optimising language use and adopting relevant and high quality curricula, teaching methods and materials will result in higher achievement, lower drop-out and repeater rates throughout the education system and lead to a system of education that services individual and social development in Africa.The aforementioned observations are central to our case study on two counts: first, the steady growth of university student numbers from a diverse linguistic and cultural background, and second, demands that universities in South Africa scrutinise the student population’s language needs. In 2018, of the estimated 1,085,325 students enrolled at higher education institutions, indigenous African students comprised 820,470, white students 140,252, coloured students around 65,885, while Indian and Asian students comprised only 47,850 (Heda, 2019). From these statistics, one gathers that most students enrolled at higher education institutions are either second or third language speakers of English, the language of learning and teaching (LoLT), and of Afrikaans, in some cases. The university of technology in this study, Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT), is also grappling with this challenge; and it is apparent that the situation of numbers, insofar as the reality of a ‘beehive’ of languages and cultures in universities, is concerned, is not going to disappear but instead probably continue to increase in future