TEACHER INTERVIEW (SCHOOL D)

Key: “T” represents the Teacher interviewee; and “I” stands for the Interviewer I: Yah………, good afternoon, sir!

T: Afternoon…..

I: Okay……Last time I had a questionnaire which I gave to your learners then they answered the questionnaire about use of everyday words in Physical Science and I interviewed them…Based on that interview and questionnaire, that’s what I want to talk about with you today………

T: Okay….

I: Alright, in the first place, I just want to know where you get the majority of your learners……….. Where do you get them from….suburbs or……?

T: Area? You mean like rural or surrounding?…..Eh…it’s like there are few squatter camps here like Makausi, Ramaphosa, and Denver, and also from the Hostels. Also, we do have learners coming from other countries like Zimbabwe and Swaziland. This is because we originally adopted the school from a…..Eh… we inherited this school from Ekukhanyeni (community school, an NGO welfare centre) which was a private school.

I: …Now, are the learners paying any school fees?

T: No, they do not pay any school fees……. (Because they are from very poor backgrounds) I: Do you provide food for them?

T: Yes, we do provide food……we do feeding scheme that is why we have an hour long break on a daily basis, there are ….(Inaudible)…..who are cooking for them every day… I: Okay, and, where do they usually do sports (since there are no sports fields around here)? T: Okay, in the middle of the year we organise grounds like Rhodes Park……..Eh……it’s a park……then we hire the grounds….. Then we do our sports there. If there are schools that need to be challenged, then we actually make sure we visit them…..and then we do that….. I: ….And your buildings, are they going to be temporary structures like these forever?

T: Basically, we are promised (by the government) may be by the end of three years to four years then they will build a school for us because the buildings you see are temporary structures that last for 3 years

I: …And the government pays for all that….what about the day to day expenses for running the school, who pays for that?

T: We are a Section 20 (state funded) school….so all our budget is controlled by the government, where they give us the term money to run the school…….all is dependent on the government, unless if we were section 21, then we could have controlled our budget by (charging school fees)……but we are not

I: Now we come to the words that actually gave your learners problems, we want to talk about three or so of them….if you look at question number 5……(giving the teacher a questionnaire paper and reading the question aloud..)…When I asked them in the interview, they said the word sensitive means getting spoilt very easily and I also asked them whether they met this word before in Physical science, some of them said No and some said Yes and they met it in Life Science and then I also said do teachers normally explain them to you……okay, in your case, do you normally explain such words to your learners?

T: Look……Eh…we are a school facing many challenges in Physical Science, where we do not have a laboratory, so we find it very hard when we want to do practical experiments and to explain. We do not have the apparatus…..like when we talk about beam balances, it’s a challenge to them since they do not know what you are talking about…..

I: How then do you go around it yourself?

T: Well, what we do….like this year, we had to call Sci-Bono (Science Discovery Centre) to come and do prescribed practical experiments in order to assist…..

I: So it is a challenge to explain to them certain words…?

T: Yes it is a very big challenge, and even if you explain theoretically…….I try sometimes explain using the …digital (computer simulations) using my projector on a screen….but it is not like a hands on way of learning as I explain..

I: Now, let me ask you something more personal, you look like you are an experienced teacher……..how many years of teaching experience do you have……maybe before you came here, you were teaching somewhere else, isn’t it?

T: 16 years…Yah, it was a better (equipped) school…but you know challenges in South African schools are wide spread, where some schools are so old and the laboratories are not functional and that is the general challenge we face as Science teachers, or you get to a functional school but you struggle to get a functional laboratory

I: Let’s go back to my research, which is about the use of everyday words in the Physics context, you said your learners come from squatter camps and other poor backgrounds, do you think this is a challenge in terms of expressing themselves and understanding English (as the medium of instruction)…….

T: Yes of course, that is why we are trying to introduce other languages like Isizulu to help learners when we explain……..although our language policy says that learners must strictly communicate in English here at school….

I: You mean like code switching….as you explain, do you allow them to use other languages?

T: Yah, look….the role of language……it is something that is being discussed…..hopefully that the role of language helps in science…….though the challenge about these words in Physical Science is that you cannot use African (indigenous) languages to explain certain terms because they lose meaning but we do try by all means to use the language that they can understand as you explain for them….

I: Are you aware that some of these words can take some contextual meaning, like this word

sensitive, it can have a meaning which is particular in Physical Science but when it is used

outside the science classroom, it changes to something else…are you are of that? T: Yah,…..that is true……

I: Okay, that is all from my side (since we have exhausted the time allocated)…(Other staff members walk in to the staff room forcing us to abandon the interview……)

(What follows is general talk as I prepare to leave…)

T: If I may ask, what are you finding in terms of teaching using African languages in schools…..?

I: I am afraid, that is not in line with what I am researching for now or in my previous research. This one is about the use of everyday words and how they change their meaning depending on contexts…I want to find out whether the teachers are away of that or they continue teaching without explaining the meaning assuming learners know it, yet learners pick other meanings from outside the Physics classroom and other subjects (phone rings)……do learners actually have problems with these everyday words…do they actually understand when these words assume contextual meaning…… (Phone rings again). Thank you very much sir….. (Walking out of the staff room)