Journal: Practicum Lesson Reflection for 20/08/2014

Subject: isiXhosa (3^rd Additional)
Class: Grade 8
Date 20/08/2014

This was my first class presented to the learners at Edgemead High School. At this particular school they do not offer isiXhosa 2^nd or 3^rd additional language, but rather, isiXhosa 1^st additional language. The educators, of which there are two, are native isiXhosa speakers and thus speak the language fluently. The Grade 8 isiXhosa class is made up of all the learners from the entire grade who wish to do isiXhosa as a 1^st additional language instead of Afrikaans; the outcome of this arrangement is that all the learners in the isiXhosa class are of African descent, speak an African language, and most of them can speak isiXhosa fluently or can at least hold a decent conversation.

However, the learners do not have an extensive vocabulary in isiXhosa and are not familiar with the codified rules of isiXhosa grammar and sentence construction; while most of them have an intuitive grasp of why something sounds right or wrong they, much like a young fluent speaker in any other language, are not familiar with the technical aspects of the language. This is a fortunate circumstance as otherwise I would not be of any use to this class of learners, they can speak the language far better than I.

This first class was very pleasant and easy to give. There are only about 10 learners in the class and they are not rowdy, rude, or disobedient. I get the idea from the learners that they are happy to have a non-native isiXhosa speaker (and White man) who is interested in an African language and are keen to learn anything new that I might be able to teach them. They progressed through the work I had prepared fairly quickly as they are familiar with most of the introductory vocabulary presented in the lesson.  A formal assessment will take place in my next lesson where I will present slightly more advanced work to see how familiar they are with the content. Overall I enjoyed the lesson and the cooperative and pleasant interaction with the class, I feel I could have challenged them more and I hope I have not set the tone for all my of lessons with this first lesson; we will see how the next lesson goes.