By Frederick Philander WINDHOEK Special attention needs to be paid to spelling and pronunciation in the teaching of English in Namibian schools if progress is to be made in the learning processes of the country. This is a specific preliminary recommendation to the country’s education authorities as part of an ongoing research project that has been conducted since July of last year among students at the Polytechnic of Namibia. The research project is being done under the leadership of Dr. Sarala Krishnamurthy, head of the School of Communication at the tertiary institute. “This research project is investigating major factors that hinder effective communication skills in students at the Polytechnic of Namibia. With the importance attached to English as an international language, it is imperative that educational institutions in Namibia equip students with English language skills so that they will be able to communicate proficiently in this language at local, regional and international levels,” said Dr. Krihnamurthy. In her opinion, there has been an outcry about the poor English that students use as many of them struggle with basic English. “This study aims to investigate the use of English in Namibia. One of the questions being investigated since July last year is the extent to which the phonologies of students’ First languages influence their oral communication in English. Using tape recordings and transcriptions of English tasks, it will be demonstrated that mispronunciation of English words by students leads to wrong spellings in their written work. The study is also examining the use of English at the lexical, syntactic and pragmatic levels,” she said. In a preliminary report, she and her team highlighted specific language-related problems students experience at the Polytechnic of Namibia. “The research so far conducted first looked at the errors made by students of the different language groups. The raw data was examined for errors in pronunciation, which led to spelling mistakes, lexical and morphological mistakes, syntactic errors and mistakes and pragmatic errors which are mainly cultural,” Dr. Krishnamurthy said in her research findings. The research is focused on the following language groups: Afrikaans, German, Kiswahili, Nama-Damara, Oshidonga, Oshikwanyama, Oshiwambo, Otjiherero, Rukwangali, Rukwango, Setswana, Sibuyi and Solozi. “With most of the languages it was found that students had a problem with the use of articles, verb concord (tenses), singular/plural forms, use of adjectives and adverbials, etc. Some interesting details include the mix-up between the ‘l’ and ‘r’ sounds, which is common among the Oshiwambo-speakers, resulting in words being spelt wrongly,” she said. According to Dr. Krishnamurthy, confusion among the Afrikaans-speaking students between the English words ‘lend’ and ‘borrow’ was evident because it is the same word that represents both concepts in their language. “With Otjiherero-speakers it was interesting to note that they spelt ‘problem’ as ‘promblem’, which the Deputy Minister explained – being a linguist herself – as L1 interference because in Otjiherero the sound ‘b’ does not occur in the middle of a word, and if it does it is always accompanied by the nasal plosive ‘m’,” she revealed in her findings. Dr. Krishnamurthy further stated that this study would be useful because once the teachers were aware of the mistakes the students were making, special attention could be paid to these deficiencies at school level and corrected by language-teaching teachers. “The research is useful also to develop a methodology to teach English, keeping in mind the peculiar needs of Namibian students. The point that should be reiterated is that when students make errors, it is because they haven’t been taught correctly and not because they cannot learn. Furthermore, since most English teachers in the country are not trained language teachers, the newly-launched Namibian English Teachers’ Association (NETA) will provide such teachers with an opportunity to develop the pedagogy,” she concluded. The research project will continue until the end of this year.