Kommunikasievrees onder swart onderwysstudente

[摘要] The purposes of this study were to determine 1. the levels ofcommunication apprehension in mother tongue and Englishexperienced by black students at Mamokgalake Chuene College ofEducation whose native language is not English ; 2. ifcommunication apprehension of these students changes during thecourse of their studies. Other variables were the extent to whichcommunication apprehension varies within the followinginteraction contexts: group discussions, meetings, conversations,public speaking and in the classroom, exposure to mother tongueand English, marks in English and mother tongue and sex of thespeaker.PRCA-24 scores and other data obtained from 278 studentsindicated that most of the students had lower levels ofcommunication apprehension than the United States norm of65 (out of 120) or 54,2% for the corresponding situations. (Totalgroup: Mother tongue: 59,3 (49,4%); English: 61,8 (51,5%))Females were more apprehensive when communicating in mothertongue and English, probably due to their culturally inferiorposition. (Men: Mother tongue: 56,3 (46,9%); English: 57,5(47,9). Women: Mother tongue: 60,7 (50,6%); English: 63,6(53, 0%)) There was a slight increase in communicationapprehension during the course of their studies. Neither theexposure to English or mother tongue nor the marks in English andmother tongue correlated with communication apprehension.Possible explanations for high levels of communicationapprehension of certain students may be the fact that the mediumof instruction at school from their fifth year at school forthese students is not their mother tongue but English, that theschool system is based on Western culture which may be too farremoved from the African culture and that these students mayexperience language anxiety and culture shock. Another factormay be that these students feel negative about their own(African) languages because they are not official languages.A reason why the communication apprehension level of this groupis lower than surveys of the USA may be due to the fact that thisgroup was a selected group of students who voluntarily chose anoccupation (teaching) in which communication plays a major role.Solutions to this problem: that lecturers and teachers beinformed about communication apprehension, that students andpupils be tested and treated for this problem, that teachingmethodology be adjusted and affective factors be considered toensure a relaxed class atmosphere.

[发布机构] North-West University