Hamilton Lugar African Languages Festival demonstrates language teaching excellence
More than 150 people attended the most recent showcase. The first thing attendees learned was a call-and-response in Akan-Twi, a West African language spoken primarily in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire. When the audience heard the word “Agoo” requesting their attention, they responded with, “Amee!” confirming, “You have it.”
This call-and-response was used throughout the festival.
“In Ghana, call-and-responses are one way that teachers get the attention of their students,” said Devin Johnson, who is studying Akan-Twi. “That tells us how crucial music is in all facets of Ghanaian society.”
Johnson is pursuing an MA in African Studies and an MA in French Language Instruction.
Johnson is also an associate instructor of French at IU, and reflected on how Indo-European languages are taught versus learning Akan-Twi, a Niger-Congo language.
“In Akan-Twi, it’s more of a focus on content and communication than what we call explicit grammar instruction, or focus on form,” said Johnson. “We utilize a lot of songs to practice phonological experiences that we are not used to, as most of us are English L1 speakers. Our texts are very dialogue oriented. We focus on communicative language teaching, or CLT models. But they are unique from CLT models that we see in more commonly taught languages.”
Making Language Learning Personal
Indiana University teaches more languages than any university in the country, and faculty are leaders in teaching less commonly taught languages like Akan-Twi. IU attracts more than 600 students each year who study African languages.
“Students’ goals and backgrounds inform how I teach,” said Matthew Ajibade, associate instructor of Yoruba. “It’s not only about what I want to teach, but also what my students want to learn.”
Ajibade, who is also a graduate linguistics student, said his students come from all disciplines. Students range from heritage speakers to students interested in public health, anthropology, religion, linguistics, business, and medicine.
“Pre-med students take our languages because they want to develop proficiency to tailor to African populations in the country,” he said. “Also, two of my students are creating children’s storybooks specifically for Yoruba. To create something that they will publish is the goal.”
Ajibade responded to his health science students’ interests by working with IU Health to translate materials into Yoruba.
Guo, who is studying Zulu, is interested in sociocultural anthropology with a focus on South Africa. Her goal is to conduct her dissertation research in South Africa, requiring professional proficiency in Zulu.
Guo’s research focuses on the Chinese diaspora in South Africa, and she plans to write her dissertation on the Chinese perception of safety in racialized spaces in the country.
“My instructor, Bongeka Selepe, is great at incorporating interests in class,” said Guo. “I am going to be doing ethnography, so learning to ask questions is really important. One day, our class was me interviewing Mama Bongeka. I told her, ‘I’m going to get personal.’ She said, ‘I know, it’s great.’”
In addition to personalizing their curricula, African language instructors foster student relationships.
Ajibade says his goal is for students to make friends in class.
“I believe in fun-filled language learning,” said Ajibade. “I know language learning is challenging for some students. Students come with all sorts of fears. What I try to do is create a fun, relaxing environment to learn. We play, we sing, we play games, we have fun in class, and they can get over their fears.”
Sophomore Katy Jordan is learning Bamana, a major language spoken in Mali and Burkina Faso.
“Bamana is more than just a language class,” said Jordan, who is majoring in merchandising with a minor in marketing. “Through the class I have gained great relationships and connected with the culture on a deeper level.”
Learning Culture through Language
At a previous African Language Festival, first year student Clark Murphy, who is studying Swahili, sang a Kenyan song.
“People really liked the song,” said Murphy. “My classmate also gave a powerpoint on what the song was about in English. It’s called Daima by Eric Wainaina, a popular Kenyan singer. Daima means forever. There was a lot of interethnic violence following the controversial election of a president. The opponent of the president who won claimed the election was rigged and it split the country up between their ethnic groups. So in that context, Eric Wainaina made this song about how Kenyans should be united.”
Murphy said being interested in a place’s culture is key to learning the language.
“I’m interested in East Africa and the Eastern DRC, Kenya and Tanzania,” said Murphy. He recently wrote a paper on the history of corruption in the Kenyan government in the public sector and is interested in continuing this work. He says that learning Swahili will help.
“One reason I wanted to put this effort into a language widely spoken there is so that I could understand the communities better,” he said.
Students learning African languages at IU are also immersed in African cultures.
“We watch the news in Swahili, read short stories, and our instructors discuss it with us,” said Murphy. “One thing I really remember is my teacher this semester, Paul Ntinda, was showing me funny YouTube videos in Swahili of this member of Parliament in Tanzania. Whenever he’s mad, he waves his head around. His catchphrase is, ‘Where did you hear that?’ Knowing Swahili makes it a lot funnier. If you can get a Swahili joke, you’ve reached a pretty advanced language level.”
“As host, it involved negotiating the dynamics between different language levels when speaking with other news reporters,” said Fos, who is majoring in anthropology, folklore, and linguistics, and minoring in Yoruba.
Fos said he became skilled at having intermediate conversations by learning about Yoruba culture. In Spring 2023, Fos took part in a cultural and linguistic immersion program in Nigeria.
“There is a big greeting culture in Nigeria,” said Fos. “There are also a lot of proverbs. When I did my oral final, they said I spoke well, but I didn’t use enough proverbs. So I’m trying to implement more proverbs into my everyday speech.”
Fos emphasizes that studying a language is not always career motivated. He is majoring in anthropology, folklore, and linguistics, and minoring in Yoruba.
“I wish Yoruba would be more commonly studied,” said Fos. “It’s just an interesting language. There’s not always an economic reason to learn a language. I’m interested in many different languages, but I want this to be a language I’m proficient in. Even if it’s finding a Nigerian restaurant and hanging out. It has become an important facet of my life. There are a lot of languages in the world aside from those that are commonly taught.”
Ajibade encourages students to take an African language and says we may need to start redefining the terminology.
“Many African languages are not foreign languages in the United States anymore, because they are becoming languages of communities,” said Ajibade. “You go to Indianapolis, you see a community of Kinyarwanda or Yoruba speakers. You go to other regions, you see communities of Swahili, Bamana, and Akan speakers. They’re not distant. You go anywhere, you see plenty of these African languages.”
The IU African Studies Program serves the nation as a U.S. Department of Education National Resource Center and Foreign Language and Area Studies awarding institution.
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