Second Pilot study Jan van Riebeeck Primary 18 April 2011

It was a wonderful opportunity to have yet another  discussion group at a Cape Town school.  This time it was not a private school and apart from consent from the headmaster and teacher, I had to obtain a letter of consent from the Western Cape Department of Education.

The grade 6 Jan van Riebeeck class also had boys and girls from different cultural groups, but this time they were also from different socio-economic backgrounds. Jan van Riebeeck is an Afrikaans medium school.  I used the same radio programme that I used for Reddam, which means the children were listening to their second or third language. (Since we have eleven official languages it might happen that children will have to listen to a language that is not their first.)

This time the speakers of  my lap top worked and we had no sound problem.  I decided to brief the class about the story they were about to hear.  I also wrote key words on the black board - words  I thought they might not understand when hearing it for the first time.  The idea is that with a real broadcast to schools, teachers will receive guides and activity suggestions beforehand. Apart from explaining to them what the research was about, I also prepared them for the fact that they might find it difficult to sit still and listen to sound only. It had to be seen as a challenge.

There were 23 children in the class. It was too big for a focus group, but more realistic in terms of a real classroom experience. 

I found the children very attentive and completely quiet throughout the listening experience.  They were given a piece of paper each, in case they wanted to write something down.  Some of them lay on their arms with open eyes, obviously listening, others looked at one spot on the table, some wrote on the paper.  I moved around to make sure that the sound was good in every corner.

I was surprised at some of the answers to my questions. I decided to ask a couple of quantitative questions first, such as:

How many of you found it too difficult to follow in a second language? No one.
How many of you feel this programme is fine in English? Everyone.
How many of you struggled to follow the accent of Jonathan from Zimbabwe? Seven found it difficult.
How many thought the programme was too long (I thought so myself). Only 5 thought it was too long.
How many liked the music in between? 15 did.
How many thought they learnt something that they did not know or think about before? Only 3 (boys) did not put up their hands.

Quanlitative questions:
What was the most memorable thing about the programme?
Various anwers: Jonathan was always positive, don't always believe what you see, listen to what people say, Jonathan was able to think out of the box, never give up hope, many were shocked when they heard that his friend was washed away and drowned.
They also realised that there is always a story behind everyone that you see on the streets.  Also that fairy tales sometimes come true.

What could make this programme better?
Jonathan could have been more emotional and the tempo should be slower.  He talks too fast.

They also had a lot of questions for Jonathan:
They wanted to know more about his life in Zimbabwe.
They wanted to know more about the part where his friend was swept away in the Zambezi river.
Did he not feel like giving up after 9 months without a job in Johannesburg?
Did he miss his family?
They wanted to know what happened to the other people who also crossed the river with him.

Do they think radio could appropriately be used for other subjects?
They were not sure about maths, but they all felt it could work for subjects like life orientation, history and geography.  One boy felt it could also work for maths if a story is told and they have to work out the amounts used in the story.
Another boy said he concentrated better when there was sound only.

They did not raise the issue of dramatising the programme to make it more interesting, the way the Reddam class did.  So I asked them about it.  Only one child thought it might be more interesting to dramatize it.  One of the boys explained that it is much more "real"  and "true" when it is told by the person that it happened to, rather that having actors enacting the story.  The rest of the class seemed to agree with him.

I asked them to suggest ways in which they as children could respect people's rights.

They said by talking to people in a respectful way, smiling or waving at them even if they do not buy something from them.

I spoke to the teacher separately. He feels radio in the classroom can play an important role and could even be used for maths.  (In Central America they had a very interesting radio mathematics programme for Nicaragua in the seventies.)  He said children need a change of voice - listening to the same voice always becomes boring and the radio could help with that.

Once again, I felt it was a good experience, the children enjoyed it and I did as well.