Effects of the Use of Chinyanja to teach literacy in a predominantly Soli speaking area of Lwimba,in Chongwe District

This study mainly focused on the effects of using Nyanja language as a medium of teaching initial literacy in a predominantly Soli speaking area of Lwimba in Chongwe district. The study was mainly a case study at Chongwe and Lwimba basic schools in Chongwe district. The population comprised all grade one New Break Through to Literacy (NBTL) pupils in Chongwe district. The sample size consisted of 97 participants. Simple random sampling was used to select two schools from Chongwe district and to select two classes from the same sampled schools. Then purposive sampling was used to select all the grade one teachers and head teachers from the sampled schools. The main research tools used were interviews, observation check list and NBTL reading Tests. The qualitative data was analyzed through the identification of common themes from the respondents' description and presentations of their experiences. Quantitative data was analyzed using the statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) to generate descriptive statistical information in form of frequencies and percentages. Also an independent T-Test was used to analyze the significance in the difference in reading level between Nyanja and Soli pupils. The findings revealed that there was a difference in reading performance between Nyanja and Soli speaking pupils. The research also showed that the difference in reading performance between the Nyanja and Soli pupils was significant. From the researcher's observations, it was also clear that the language spoken in Lwimba area by children is cisoli. The study also revealed the effects of using Nyanja language as medium of teaching initial literacy in a predominantly Soli speaking area of Lwimba in Chongwe district which were; Nyanja language was not appropriate as medium of teaching initial literacy in Lwimba area because it failed to encourage creativity in speaking. Learning in Nyanja caused pupils to accumulate less vocabulary, sentence patterns and grammatical rules in Nyanja itself, thereby restricting pupils' chances to ably express themselves. The study
therefore, recommended that the Government should allow Soli language to be used as medium of teaching initial literacy in Lwimba and other rural areas in Chongwe district.