An investigation into the spelling ability of English-speaking and Afrikaans-speaking pupils in South African schools

Abstract

The parlous state in which the English language finds itself in South Africa, both in its written and speech forms, is the cause ot grave concern to most English-speaking citizens, and to many Afrikaans-speaking people as well. This is the case not only in the commercial world and the civll service, but also in the schools and universities, and in fact in most walks of life. Although we are conscious of this state of affairs, and can quote many examples of the poor quality of English used, we have no measuring device through which we can assess exactly how bad the language used by any given group of people is. It is not possible to compare the performance in English of a certain school with standard English and to express the result as a percentage score. The aim of this investigation was to find out how well, or how badly, South African school children spell, and to compare the performances of English- and Afrikaansspeaking pupils. It was felt that the results would provide some concrete evidence and fairly accurate data which could be used to assess the standard of English spelling in our schools, and to pinpoint some of the major weaknesses. The writer hoped, thus, that the investigation might be of some practical usefulness to teachers of English spelling, and as spelling is basic to the written word and to some extent to the spoken word, it might make some small contribution to the drive towards better English in South African schools.