Language Matters

Studies in the Languages of Africa

ISSN: 1022-8195 (Print) 1753-5395 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rlms20

Curriculum Expectations versus Teachers’

Opinions and Practices in Teaching English in Rural
Primary Schools in Uganda

Medadi Ssentanda, Frenette Southwood & Kate Huddlestone

To cite this article: Medadi Ssentanda, Frenette Southwood & Kate Huddlestone
(2019) Curriculum Expectations versus Teachers’ Opinions and Practices in Teaching
English in Rural Primary Schools in Uganda, Language Matters, 50:2, 141-163, DOI:
10.1080/10228195.2018.1536162

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/10228195.2018.1536162

Published online: 21 Aug 2019.

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 ARTICLE

Curriculum Expectations versus Teachers’ Opinions and

Practices in Teaching English in Rural Primary Schools in
Uganda

Medadi Ssentanda Frenette Southwood

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5420-4744 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8247-2081
Makerere University, Uganda Stellenbosch University, South Africa
Stellenbosch University, South Africa fs@sun.ac.za
medadies@gmail.com

Kate Huddlestone
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6495-7897
Stellenbosch University, South Africa
katevg@sun.ac.za

Abstract
The expectation of the National Curriculum Development Centre (NCDC) of Uganda is
that, using a thematic curriculum, learners in rural schools will learn at least 800 English
words after three years of instruction in the language as a subject. This article draws on
available literature on vocabulary learning by children and on results from a study conducted
in four rural Ugandan primary schools. The study focused on the difficulties that learners
in rural Ugandan schools experience in learning English, and the findings indicate that the
expectation of acquiring 800 words in three years is unrealistic. The reasons for the failure
to reach the 800-word target include a lack of availability of learning and teaching support
materials, rural learners’ limited exposure to English inside and outside of the classroom,
teachers’ low levels of English proficiency, and the limited time allocated to learning English.
Recommendations are made for revisions to the curriculum and for improved support for
teachers.

Keywords: English; vocabulary size; word family; second language learning;

thematic curriculum; language policy; Uganda

Language Matters https://doi.org/10.1080/10228195.2018.1536162

Volume 50 | Number 2 | 2019 | pp. 141–163 ISSN 1753-5395 (Online), ISSN 1022-8195 (Print)
www.tandfonline.com/rlms20 © Unisa Press 2019

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Ssentanda, Southwood and Huddlestone Curriculum Expectations versus Teachers’ Opinions

1. Introduction
This article seeks to contribute to debates on second language (L2) vocabulary learning
by investigating the expectations of Uganda’s school curriculum for English and the
realities of teaching and learning English in rural Ugandan primary schools. The general
academic performance of children in these rural schools is poor. For example, Uwezo
(2013, 2016), an organisation conducting education assessments in East Africa, reports
that Ugandan children’s reading levels are consistently higher in urban than in rural
areas, and that rural children attain reading competencies later than their urban peers.
By P5 (the fifth year of formal schooling), only half of rural learners are able to read an
English P2 story with comprehension.
This poor academic and reading performance is partly due to the learners’ limited English
vocabulary. English is the official language in Uganda and the language of learning
and teaching (LoLT) and examination at all levels of education. Accordingly, one’s
acquisition of English determines one’s educational progress, and this has ideological
and practical implications for the teaching of English as L2 (cf. Ssentanda 2013). The
question arises as to whether only learners are to blame when they fail to meet national
curriculum expectations for English. To answer this question, one can consider how
realistic the expectations of policy makers are of Ugandan children as regards the
required threshold levels of vocabulary learning (NCDC 2007a; 2007b; 2008),1 namely,
whether Ugandan children can learn the expected 800 English words by the end of their
first three years of formal schooling.
Drawing from an ethnographic study conducted in rural Ugandan schools, this article
will answer questions related to English vocabulary learning in government and private
schools. The issues discussed include rural learners’ exposure to English, the lack of
availability of learning and teaching support materials (LTSM), teachers’ contact time
with learners, as well as the nature of the curriculum in government and private schools.
In the discussion, a comparison is drawn between the circumstances in which English
is taught and learned during the first four years of schooling in both government and
private schools in rural Uganda, highlighting the contrasts between these two types of
school. We discuss the above in order to answer four research questions, namely:

i. What kind of LTSM are used in the curriculum, and how do these support vocabulary
learning?
ii. What are the challenges pertaining to the acquisition of English vocabulary faced
by rural Ugandan learners?
iii. What are the main differences between government and private schools regarding
vocabulary teaching?

1 The National Curriculum Development Centre (NCDC) is the national body in Uganda responsible
for designing curricula and overseeing their implementation in primary and secondary schools.

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Ssentanda, Southwood and Huddlestone Curriculum Expectations versus Teachers’ Opinions

iv. What opportunities do learners have to be exposed to English at school?

The article is organised as follows: In the next section, we provide an overview of
common language learning and teaching issues in Africa. Next, in section 3, we broadly
contextualise our research by providing a description of Uganda’s education system,
the language-in-education policy of the country, and the expectations of the thematic
curriculum with regard to learning English as L2. In section 4, we focus on vocabulary
learning in light of the assumptions of the NCDC about learning English. We then
describe the research context of our study and the methods used to collect data (section
5). This is followed by a discussion of the findings of this study (section 6) and a general
conclusion (section 7).

2. Overarching Issues in Language Learning and Teaching in

Africa
Scholars have reported various challenges facing language-in-education policy
development and implementation in Africa. Some of these relate to misconceptions
about L2 learning (in the case of this article, the learning of English) and others to
human and material resources. For example, curricula are not always related to learner
needs, learning materials are inadequate, teachers are underqualified, learner-to-teacher
ratios are high, and infrastructure is poor (cf., e.g., Benson 2002; Heugh et al. 2007).
A further challenge for language teaching and learning in Africa is the assumed complex
multilingualism in many African countries. Where many languages are spoken, it is at
times argued that it is difficult to use only one local African language as LoLT in any
particular school. In these cases, policy makers often resort to using their countries’
official, international languages (e.g. English, French or Portuguese) as LoLT (Ouane
and Glanz 2010). This practice affects not only the acquisition of learners’ mother
tongues (MTs) but also their learning of English (Walter and Chuo 2012).
There are also many beliefs that affect the teaching and learning of first and second
languages in multilingual contexts. One such belief is that if a language is not employed
as LoLT from a very early age, it is difficult to acquire it successfully (see Romaine 2013;
Benson 2008). This misconception arises from what Glanz (2013, 61) terms a failure
to understand “the difference between using a language as a medium of instruction and
teaching a language as a subject.” Using a language as LoLT calls for mastery of the
language as it is through this language that curriculum content is delivered and literacy
is acquired, whereas teaching a language as an L2 does not require any prior knowledge
of it. In Uganda’s case, children are required to learn English while simultaneously
learning by means of it, because insufficient time is allowed for English language
learning before English becomes the LoLT.

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Ssentanda, Southwood and Huddlestone Curriculum Expectations versus Teachers’ Opinions

There is a large body of research on the challenges of implementing language-in-

education policies in African contexts. Nevertheless, there are few localised studies on
the discrepancies between what policy demands of English teaching on the one hand,
and actual classroom practices on the other. Therefore, there is a need to ascertain
what discrepancies exist between policy and practice and how these affect education
generally. Moreover, there is a dearth of research regarding vocabulary learning in both
first and second languages in African contexts.

3. Uganda’s Language-in-Education Policy and Thematic

Curriculum
Uganda is a multilingual country with over 43 indigenous languages (Lewis, Simons,
and Fennig 2017). A former British colony, its first official language is English. English
is also the LoLT and sole language of examination across all levels of education (cf.
Gyagenda and Rajab-Gyagenda 2014). There is no national language in Uganda, but
local languages are spoken to varying degrees and in different contexts, with Luganda
being the dominant local language in many domains, including the media, trade, church,
sports, and film industry.
Uganda has a four-tier education model: seven years of primary education; four years
of lower secondary; two years of Higher School Certificate, and three (or four to five)
years of university education (Uganda National Examinations Board 2011). Pre-primary
schooling is not compulsory in Uganda. Preschools are privately owned and are typically
attached to private schools (cf. Ejuu 2012). There is no official language-in-education
policy at pre-primary level, and teaching takes place almost exclusively in English.
Uganda’s language-in-education policies have been criticised for many decades; debates
before and after independence centred on which languages (or combinations thereof)
should be used in schools: Uganda’s local languages, Kiswahili, other languages of
wider communication, or English (Lasebikan, Ismagilova and Hurel 1964; Ssekamwa
2000). Lasebikan et al. (1964) argue that the pre-1964 language policy was better than
the then current policy as the former allowed for the transition to English together
with the use of languages of wider communication in different parts of the country.
According to Lasebikan et al., attempts were made to develop LTSM in the languages
of wider communication, but the policy was abandoned in 1963 in favour of the Castle
Education Commission’s recommendations (Rosendal 2010), which Lasebikan et al.
judge as impractical because of the multilingual nature of the urban areas of the country.
After 1963, the prominent language-in-education policy in Uganda was and still is the
Government White Paper on the Implementation of the Recommendation of the Report
of Education Review Commission (Uganda 1992) which was not implemented until
2006/2007, as will be explained below. From colonial times up until today, English has

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Ssentanda, Southwood and Huddlestone Curriculum Expectations versus Teachers’ Opinions

been foregrounded in Ugandan language-in-education policies, and all policies have

advocated for the introduction of English as LoLT in the fourth year of formal schooling.
Prior to 2004, the acquisition of literacy skills, as well as children’s general academic
progress, was poor, particularly in rural Uganda, with children’s scores being
significantly below the expected average scores (Read and Enyutu 2004). This situation
necessitated a revision of the subject curriculum of the time into a purportedly more
child-friendly and child-centred curriculum called “the thematic curriculum” (Kateeba
2009). Curriculum designers argued that children would find themes easier to relate to
than subjects, and that the acquisition of literacy skills as well as of English language
skills would be improved by working thematically. However, from P4 onwards, a
subject-based curriculum is still followed. The thematic curriculum and the MT policy
were both piloted in 2006 and were rolled out countrywide in 2007 (Altinyelken 2010).2
The current MT education policy requires rural children to learn through a dominant
local language for the first three years of primary school while English is taught as a
subject and becomes the LoLT in P5 (Ministry of Education and Sports 2004; Uganda
1992). P4 is a transition year (Kateeba 2009) in which both the MT and English are used
in preparation for English-only tuition from P5 onwards. However, the policy allows for
exceptions, stipulating that in areas where it is not easy to identify the (one) dominant
local language, such as in urban areas, English is to be used as LoLT from P1 onwards
while the MT is to be taught as a subject. However, there are no guidelines as to how
schools should determine which of the several MTs in the area should be taught as
subject.
The language-in-education policy and thematic curriculum are based on several
expectations and stipulations for teaching English in the first three years of formal
schooling (cf. NCDC 2008). Firstly, the NCDC supports a one-teacher-one-classroom
approach from P1 to P3: if a teacher is allocated to a P2 class, for instance, he/she is
responsible for all the teaching received by that class, including the teaching of English.
There is thus no rotation of teachers between classes or grades, and P1 to P3 teachers do
not specialise in language teaching. Indeed, as will be discussed below, some teachers
are not trained at all as language teachers. This is particularly problematic where teachers
have low levels of English proficiency, given that in rural schools the classroom teacher
is often learners’ sole source of English input.
Secondly, the policy stipulates cycles of learning and teaching in lower primary school,
with P1 to P3 forming Cycle 1. The focus in this first cycle is on the attainment of
basic literacy skills, and the MT is used as the LoLT. In P4 (the transition year), which
forms Cycle 2, English is introduced as the LoLT and the shift from the thematic to
a subject-based curriculum occurs. The justification for this transition is to avoid an

2 Note that because the thematic curriculum and MT policy were rolled out simultaneously, teachers
often use the terms “MT curriculum” and “thematic curriculum” interchangeably to refer to either.

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Ssentanda, Southwood and Huddlestone Curriculum Expectations versus Teachers’ Opinions

abrupt “immersion” into English after Cycle 1. Cycle 3 runs from P5 to P7. In this
cycle, English is the LoLT and the MT is maintained as a subject (NCDC 2006). The
expectation is thus that three years of English as a subject (during Cycle 1) will allow
learners to develop sufficient proficiency in English to learn by means of English only.
Thirdly, the policy stipulates teaching strategies for English, also called “teaching
procedures” (NCDC 2007b). For P1, these procedures include presenting new
vocabulary (not more than five words in each day’s 30-minute lesson); presenting new
sentence structures; using short dialogues, pictures and wall charts during teaching; and
teaching through songs, games, role-play and acting. The P2 and P3 methods are much
the same as those for P1 and include presenting new vocabulary and sentence structures;
using phonics, short dialogues, songs, role-play and acting, situational games and play,
rhymes, and exercises in speech.
In addition, teachers are discouraged from using local languages while teaching English
as this is believed to compromise the learning of English. Nation (2003) states that if
children do not receive exposure to a language outside the classroom, there should be
maximum exposure in the classroom. Some researchers (e.g. Atkinson 1987; Nation and
Waring 1997) recommend the use of the first language in the L2 classroom, for example
to facilitate the teaching of L2 vocabulary. However, the NCDC (2007a) disallows this
practice, arguing that the L2 classroom should provide learners with maximum exposure
to English, because teachers may be the only source of English input for Uganda’s
rural children. However, Ssentanda (2014b) demonstrates that when teachers follow
the NCDC stipulation of not using the first language during English language lessons,
learners do not comprehend classroom discourse (including teacher instructions) well.
The NCDC (2007a, 2007b, 2008) predicts that employing the above teaching procedures
will allow learners to attain an English vocabulary of approximately 200 words by the
end of P1, 500 words by the end of P2, and 800 words by the end of P3. Note that the
NCDC predicts an increase of 300 words per annum and expects that an 800-word
vocabulary will enable learners to use English as their LoLT starting in P4, with the
MT used minimally.3 However, available evidence, to which we turn below, does not
support these predictions and expectations.

4. An Overview of Vocabulary Learning Studies

Vocabulary is crucial for reading and ultimately for reading with comprehension,
and a smaller vocabulary than expected at a certain school level will hinder learners’
comprehension of level-appropriate texts and materials (Hirsh and Nation 1992; Nation
2006; Tannenbaum, Torgesen and Wagner 2006). Nation (2006) shows that for L2

3 The NCDC does not refer to “word families” but rather to “words.” The distinction between words
and word families is discussed below.

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Ssentanda, Southwood and Huddlestone Curriculum Expectations versus Teachers’ Opinions

learners of English to be able to read and understand graded readers, they would need
knowledge of the 3000 most frequent words of the British National Corpus (BNC).
Nation and Waring (1997) recommend that L2 learners learn at least these 3000 high
frequency words. The 800 English words that Ugandan school children are estimated to
have learnt by the end of P3 fall far below the number of words needed for learners to
comfortably access content in English. In addition, as will be shown below, the 3000-
word expectation does not match the number of words considered realistically learnable
in poorly resourced learning environments.
Many scholars consider three years of teaching and learning an L2 as a subject
insufficient for children to attain enough words to be able to learn through the medium
of it. For instance, Desai (2012) and Woldemariam (2007) provide evidence that, by the
time children are promoted to P4 (or the equivalent thereof), they do not yet have the
vocabulary required to learn comfortably through medium of the L2. We will turn to the
reasons for this failure below.
We will now discuss findings on what is and is not considered possible with regard to
children’s vocabulary learning in an L2. The estimates that Nation (2006) and other
authors in the field of vocabulary learning make are based on word families and not on
words as one would find them in a dictionary. “Word family” refers to “the word and
all its inflected and derived forms” counted as one vocabulary entry (Nation 2006). For
instance, “the word-family of abbreviate contains the following members: abbreviate,
abbreviates, abbreviated, abbreviating, abbreviation, abbreviations” (Nation 2006, 63),
and the members of this word family are not each counted as a separate word. The
reason for considering word families when counting vocabulary size is that, should
learners be familiar with one member of a word family, they are likely to know or be
able to arrive at the meaning of the other members of that family. Note that the NCDC
does not specify whether the expected learnable 200, 500, and 800 words are words or
in fact word families. Even when assuming that the NCDC is referring to word families,
800 English word families by the end of P3 will still fall below the 3000-word-family
threshold needed for a learner to learn through the medium of English (Nation 2006).
The NCDC’s predictions about English vocabulary learning fall short on two counts:
Firstly, the predictions are not supported by evidence, because no traceable study has
explored vocabulary acquisition in Uganda, and secondly, the anticipated 800 words
(or perhaps word families) fall below the number required for learners to comfortably
engage with the curriculum by the end of P3.
Studies on transitional education (e.g. Cummins 2000a), such as that found in Uganda,
have demonstrated that children need both basic interpersonal communication skills
(BICS) and cognitive/academic language proficiency (CALP) in the L2 in order to
successfully make use of it as LoLT. Cummins (1979; 2000a; 2000b) demonstrates that
children need at least two years to develop BICS and four years to develop CALP, in
well-resourced environments. The question is whether children in rural Uganda are in a

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Ssentanda, Southwood and Huddlestone Curriculum Expectations versus Teachers’ Opinions

position to acquire BICS and CALP in English given the circumstances in rural schools
(see the discussion of results in section 6).
For learners to acquire the required vocabulary size, certain criteria should be met.
For example, teachers should be trained in different vocabulary teaching approaches
(Goulden, Nation and Read 1990; Nation 2001), which should then be used to help
learners learn those words relevant for their grade level. Furthermore, there should be
intensive interaction in class; instruction should last at least 45 minutes each day of the
school week; classes should be small (between 10 and 15 learners); and teachers should
have a good command of the language (Djigunovich and Vilke 2000). Nikolov (2000,
43) states that “if any of the requirements are missing, second language instruction
should not begin at an early age; a negative experience may harm children’s attitude to
the target language and to language learning in general.”
In order to answer our research questions on L2 vocabulary learning in rural Ugandan
schools, we conducted classroom observations and interviewed teachers on the thematic
curriculum and on the NCDC’s expectations regarding vocabulary thresholds per grade.
Our research context and the methods used are discussed below.

5. Research Context and Methods

5.1. Research Context
In this study, we discuss findings of an ethnographic study conducted in rural schools in
Uganda between September and December 2012. The findings that we report here are
part of a larger study involving ten schools, two urban and eight rural. The main aim of
the larger study was to explore teachers’ understanding and management of the process
of transitioning from the MT to English as LoLT. Four of the schools in the larger study
were from the rural Rakai district, two from the Kampala urban district (the capital of
Uganda), and four from the Oyam rural district (Northern Uganda). In this article, we
focus only on the four Rakai schools, of which two were government owned and two
privately owned. Rakai district is about 190 km from Kampala.4 In our analysis, the two
government schools will be anonymised as RuralGov-A and RuralGov-B whereas the
two private schools will be labelled as RuralPriv-C and RuralPriv-D.
The socio-economic status of the study area is very low. Private schools had two sections,
a day section and a boarding section. The school fees paid by learners who attend these
schools during day were $11.50 per term whereas those who were boarding paid about
$58.80. The government schools did not have boarding sections.

4 In order to avoid unintentionally revealing the identity of these schools and the participants, we refrain
from providing details of schools’ location or other potentially identifying descriptions of the schools.

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Ssentanda, Southwood and Huddlestone Curriculum Expectations versus Teachers’ Opinions

As might be the case in other countries with a colonial history, government schools have
religious affiliations. In the case of our study, RuralGov-A belonged to the Anglican
Church and RuralGov-B to the Catholic Church. RuralPriv-C and RuralPriv-D were
privately owned with no religious affiliations. All government primary schools in Uganda
have since 1997 been part of the Universal Primary Education (UPE) programme,
which allows every family to send four children to government schools free of charge.
When UPE was first introduced, learner numbers in government schools swelled. The
sudden increase in learner numbers without an accompanying improvement in schools’
infrastructure led to numbers in government schools dwindling again (at least in our
study area), whereas those of private schools have grown (cf. Ssentanda 2013). At
the time of this study, the number of learners in the private schools was higher than
that in the government schools: for RuralGov-A, the P1 to P5 enrolment was 227; for
RuralGov-B, 250; for RuralPriv-C, 358; and for RuralPriv-D, 332.5
The two government schools had no pre-primary section, but both private schools did,
and it was compulsory for every child joining P1 in a private school to have attended
pre-primary school. If a child entered a private school without completing pre-primary,
he/she would be demoted by two school grades, purportedly to compensate for the “lost”
pre-primary years—despite pre-primary schooling officially being optional in Uganda,
as stated above. As is typical in Uganda, pre-primary at RuralPriv-C and RuralPriv-D
was presented in English only.
All four schools were ethnically largely homogenous. Despite this, private schools
claimed to have complex multilingualism and accordingly offered instruction in English
only from pre-primary onwards (cf. Ssentanda 2013). However, in our study we asked
teachers about their learners’ linguistic repertoires, amongst other things, and established
that the nature of multilingualism in private schools in this area did not differ from that
in the government schools: Luganda was clearly the dominant language in both types of
school. The two private schools taught Luganda (MT) as a subject, with English being
the main LoLT from pre-primary onwards, although code switching between Luganda
and English was observed during classroom interactions. The implementation of the
language-in-education policy differed at the two types of school: the two private schools
partially implemented the policy by teaching the MT (Luganda) as a subject, whereas
the two government schools attempted to comply with the policy.
The lower primary section of the government schools (P1 to P3) followed the one-
teacher-one-classroom model, as required by the NCDC. For P4 to P7, more than one
teacher handled a class, and each taught only some of the subjects in the class allocated
to them. By contrast, P1 to P3 classes in the private schools had more than one teacher
for every class. These schools also did not follow the thematic curriculum but only

5 Learner numbers given are from P1 to P5 because these were the classes that were studied.

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Ssentanda, Southwood and Huddlestone Curriculum Expectations versus Teachers’ Opinions

“borrowed” some of its content and incorporated it into a subject-based curriculum,

contrary to NCDC stipulations.
The two types of school had different school hours and lesson durations. According
to government stipulations, government primary schools should start lessons at 8:30.
Lessons end at 13:00 for P1 and P2 and at 16.00 for P3 to P7, followed by games and
sports until 17:00, when school closes. However, we observed that only RuralGov-B
adhered to the stipulated school times; at RuralGov-A, lessons ended at 13:00 each
school day for all classes, and children did extramural activities (mostly games, sports
and/or music) from 14:00 to 17:00. By contrast, private schools RuralPriv-C and
RuralPriv-D had lessons from 8:00 for all learners, and lessons ended at 13:00 for P1
and P2 and at 17:00 for P3 to P7. No extramural activities (cultural or sports activities
and/or games) were observed at RuralPriv-C and RuralPriv-D during the three months
of data collection.

5.2. Methods
A multimethod approach was used to collect data by means of questionnaires (a total
of 39),6 classroom observations (36 instances), follow-up interviews (8 teachers) and
note taking. Ethical clearance was obtained from the Research Ethics Committee
(Humanities) of Stellenbosch University and the Uganda National Council for Science
and Technology prior to data collection. The questionnaires, classroom observations
and follow-up interviews aimed to capture demographic data of teachers and learners
(including their linguistic repertoires); teachers’ views on the current language-in-
education policy and the thematic curriculum; linguistic practices in the classrooms;
teachers’ preparation for, and assistance to learners for, the transition from the MT to
English as LoLT; and teachers’ opinions on how to improve the teaching of the MT
and the implementation of the thematic curriculum in their schools. P1 to P3 teachers
were included in our study, because these are the grades in which children are meant
to be prepared to transition from the MT to English as LoLT. In addition, P4 and P5
teachers participated, because these are the grades immediately after the initiation of
the transition, and the classroom interactions and insights from teachers at this level
would reveal whether children had indeed been ready for the transition to English only.
All data were collected by the first author, who hails from the study area and attended
both government and private schools there. The questionnaire, interview schedules
and classroom observation guides were agreed upon by all three authors prior to the
commencement of data collection.
In each school, five classes were observed; thus a total of 20 classrooms were
observed in a space of two months. As classroom observations require familiarisation
with participants, each classroom was visited more than once before recordings of

6 Questionnaires were completed by P1 to P5 teachers at the four studied schools.

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Ssentanda, Southwood and Huddlestone Curriculum Expectations versus Teachers’ Opinions

classrooms interactions commenced. In total, 36 classroom recordings were made for

analysis purposes. Following Walsh (2011), an observation guide and audio-recorder
were used to conduct classroom observations in order to guarantee consistency across
observations. Classroom observations helped to ascertain the strategies teachers use in
teaching the MT and English and those used to scaffold the transition from the MT to
English as LoLT.
In total, eight interviews were conducted (with two teachers per study school), all by
the first author. The teachers were selected based on the information they provided on
the background questionnaire and what classroom observations revealed, in accordance
with Denscombe (2008). Questionnaire completion lasted two days. Once questionnaires
were collected from teachers, they were checked for completeness. Missing information
was obtained when conducting the interviews.
The transcription of classroom observations and interviews occurred immediately
after the end of the data collection period. Transcription was done by the first author,
instead of by a research assistant, in order to increase familiarity with the data. The 28
hours of recording totalled 635 typed pages of transcription. PotPlayer, an audio/video
player, was used as it is possible to assign shortcuts on the keyboard through MS Word
to enhance transcription speed. A second transcriber (fluent in English and Luganda)
checked the accuracy of the first author’s transcriptions. Hereafter, Lugandan sections
of the transcripts were translated into English by the first author, who is a MT speaker
of Luganda.7 These translations were checked by a qualified translator. The process
of coding and theming started during translation, with the first author using different
colours and making comments in MS Word to mark portions of the transcriptions that
pertained to the themes under study (see below). These codes and comments helped to
condense the data (cf. Saldaña 2009).
Braun and Clarke (2006) and Saldaña (2009) provide comprehensive guidelines on
coding and theming. In sum, there are six steps: become familiar with the data; generate
initial codes; search for themes; review themes; define and name themes; and write a
report. We adapted these guidelines, assigning signposts to portions of data that contained
possible answers to the research questions. For example, the signpost “teacher switches
from Luganda to English, OT9.RGBP5” would be inserted, where “OT9.RGBP5”
meant “Observation Transcript 9, of a P5 class in rural government school B.” Other
themes were easily identifiable as interviews were conducted according to particular
themes, for example on policy issues or on teachers’ classroom practices.
Questionnaire data were entered into Excel sheets (qualitative data) and into SPSS
(quantitative data). When all data were prepared as described above, the analysis was

7 The teachers were not instructed to speak English during the interviews. The interviewer mostly spoke
Luganda, but at times code switched to English, as is customary in conversations between adults in the
region.

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Ssentanda, Southwood and Huddlestone Curriculum Expectations versus Teachers’ Opinions

done in a triangulated manner, with each data set feeding into the other to provide rich
answers to the research questions.

6. Study Results
In this section, we discuss the varying difficulties that learners in rural government
and private schools face as they learn English. In accordance with the language-in-
education policy of Uganda, government schools use Luganda as LoLT from P1 to
P3. English is taught as a subject, but the teaching of the MT as a subject takes place
very irregularly. By contrast, private schools use English as LoLT and teach the MT
and English as subjects in P1 to P3. Therefore, as far as the teaching of English as a
subject is concerned, both types of school comply with policy. We present the findings
thematically, in a comparative manner, discussing the various challenges posed to
learning English in rural Uganda.

6.1. Variation in LTSM and the Curriculum Enacted in Textbooks

As explained above, the NCDC expected that the thematic curriculum would be
perceived as well structured, and that it (together with the appropriate LTSM which
were meant to accompany it) would facilitate English language learning, especially in
rural schools. Contrary to NCDC expectations, teachers in government schools viewed
the curriculum as inadequate, repetitive and poorly structured, i.e. that it was difficult
to implement this curriculum in their classrooms (cf. Extract 1, turns 2 and 8, which
are some teacher statements, amongst many, that exemplify this).8 Moreover, teachers
observed that the curriculum is not accompanied by relevant, adequate and appropriate
textbooks and/or LTSM. According to teachers in the government schools, this leads to
children not being able to learn the required vocabulary within the specified period, as
teaching and learning in government schools is disjointed, with no continuity from one
school year to the next. As a result, learners are not exposed to the required content in
any specific school year. Ultimately, vocabulary learning and language acquisition is
slow and incomplete. In addition, government school teachers report that learners might
never reach the English vocabulary threshold level expected of them by the end of each
year.

Extract 1: From the interview with a P3 teacher at School RuralGov-A

MS:
1
Kati bino byo amasomero ga gavumentwe tebabimanyi?

Don’t government schools know about these books/materials?

8 In both extracts Lugandan portions and their English translations are in italics. “MS” refers to the first
author and “T” to the interviewed or observed teacher.

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Ssentanda, Southwood and Huddlestone Curriculum Expectations versus Teachers’ Opinions

2
T:
Aaa, private schools be babyeyambisa bino. Kati asuubira…, muno mulimu activities za
ngeri, ka nzikulage. Kaakati wano basooka kudescribinga abantu nga bwe bafaanana, big,
bali big, biki biki. Kaakati babirwako nnyo! Wano bakiyigiriza, ne wano bakiyigiriza, ne
wano era kye baddamu, ne badda mu colours, ne badda mu bintu ebiri awo… kwe kugamba
ogenda okumala ekintu nga… bakirwako nnyo nnyo!

No, no, it is private schools that make use of these materials. (…) in these books are various
kinds of activities, let me show them to you. In here they start by describing how people look
like, big, they are big and so on. They take a long time doing that. Here they talk about it,
even here, also here it is the same thing repeated. Then they go to colours, and some other
funny things, so by the time you finish a theme, they would have spent much time on it.

3
MS: Mulimu okweddamu kungi!

There is a lot of repetition.

4
T: Kwe kugamba ne baba nga tebasobola kukola bintu nga tall, taller, biki biki. Ne wano,
okiraba?

So, they would not be able to describe something as tall, taller and so on. Do you see it
here as well?

5
MS: Uhm!

Yes.

6
T: Kati bagenda okukivaako…

So by the time they complete a theme…!

7
MS: Uhm.

Yes.

8
T: Badde ku topic endala, ate era badde ku kirala, oba topic endala tugambe nga describing
objects ate era badda ku kiri. Kati wano tutandise describing objects nazo okwate ebbanga
liirino ppitirivu, omalirako ddala ekiseera [teacher opens pages of book to show the many
pages such a topic covers].

And continue to another topic, and again go to another topic for instance describing
objects, they would instead go back to the other. Here we start describing objects, this
occupies a great amount of time, you take a very long time. [Teacher opens pages of book
to show the many pages such a topic covers].

Recall that the current language-in-education policy is implemented in different ways

in government and private schools in Uganda (cf. Ssentanda 2013). In all the interviews
conducted in the two government schools, teachers drew comparisons between their
schools and private schools (cf. Extract 1, turn 2 above), and stated that government-
school teachers are not as well-resourced as their private-school counterparts. The
LTSM provided by the government were seen as lacking in quantity and quality, and

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Ssentanda, Southwood and Huddlestone Curriculum Expectations versus Teachers’ Opinions

teachers in government schools considered the LTSM used in private schools to be

richer than those used in their schools.
This perceived difference in LTSM of government and private schools could cause
one to ask whether there is a different curriculum for government and private schools.
Theoretically, there is one curriculum for all schools in Uganda, but the curriculum
is implemented in different ways: Government schools use LTSM provided by the
government only (because they do not have the finances to purchase additional materials)
whereas private schools use some government-recommended LTSM supplemented by
those available on the open market. Teachers mentioned that the open-market materials
are more comprehensive than the government-provided materials in terms of content,
are better structured, and are better for English language teaching.
Teachers at government schools assessed the thematic curriculum as shallow and stated
that it was their duty to enrich it but that they did not know to what extent they could do
so without getting into trouble with the authorities: When school inspectors visit classes
to check what is being taught, teachers are reprimanded if their learners’ books show
evidence of content which falls outside of the thematic curriculum.
Furthermore, the classroom observations revealed that government schools indeed had
insufficient LTSM. For example, during the entire three-month period of data collection,
it was only once observed that a teacher handed out textbooks to learners to use during
a lesson (in a P5 English lesson in RuralGov-B), and even then there were not enough
textbooks for each of the 32 learners to have his/her own book.

6.2. Learners’ Exposure to English: Limited Opportunities to Hear and

Practise English
Recall that all private schools in Uganda have pre-primary sections, and learners who
attend private schools have English as LoLT from pre-primary onwards. By contrast,
learners who attend government schools do not attend pre-primary; P1 is their first
year of school ever, and they are instructed in MT only and have English as a subject
until the end of P3, when the LoLT transitions to English (Ssentanda 2014a). Rural
government-school learners thus receive their first exposure to English in P1, whereas
their counterparts in private schools would have been exposed to English for two or
three years before entering P1. Furthermore, in private schools, it is compulsory for
all learners to speak English to each other and to their teachers on the school grounds,
whereas those in government schools only encounter English during English language
lessons. This creates two different environments for learning English. One set of
learners, those in private schools, are taught in and practise speaking English at school
from the age of three or four, while the other set, in government schools, are taught the
language from the age of six or seven, but their practice opportunities in English are
negligible. The age of first exposure and (cumulative) quantity of input favour private-

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Ssentanda, Southwood and Huddlestone Curriculum Expectations versus Teachers’ Opinions

school learners and, as such, these learners are likely to be more proficient in English
than those in government schools. Indeed, classroom observations demonstrated that
learners in government schools were not as proficient in English production as those in
private schools: Learners in government schools responded (appropriately) in Luganda
to questions and instructions, which teachers gave in English. In addition, P4 and P5
teachers in government schools evaluated their learners’ English proficiency as still
lacking. In many cases, government school teachers complained that their learners
“forced” them to speak Luganda, even in P5, despite the NCDC policy not permitting
teachers to do so. The teachers did so, however, because the learners’ vocabulary was
too limited to allow instruction in English only. This is exemplified in Extract 2.

Extract 2: From classroom observation of a P5 Mathematics lesson in school

RuralGov-B

T: Singa owa P5 sikyayogera Luganda Naye ggwe ompaliriza okugendako ewammwe

gy’omanyi. Owulira? Kubanga wano nsomesa busomesa ggwe ogamba aaa, saategeera.
Now we go to number eleven. Write five hundred forty two in Roman numerals. Gyagenda,
can you come here and write five hundred forty two in Roman nuˆ…

I should not be speaking Luganda to a P5 learner. But you are compelling me to use the
language which you know. Do you understand that? Because if I simply teach [through
English] you might say that you did not understand. Let’s now go to number eleven. Write
five hundred forty two in Roman numerals. Gyagenda, can you come here and write five
hundred forty two in Roman nuˆ…?

Although teachers (e.g. the one in Extract 2) said that they used Luganda in class because
their learners do not understand English sufficiently, it was evident from classroom
observations that the teachers also had problems expressing themselves adequately in
English and code switched to Luganda for their own ease of expression.
Heugh et al. (2007) point out that if a language is only used and learnt in a school
context, it is difficult for children to acquire it. In the case of South Africa, where
children are exposed to English outside the classroom context to a far greater extent
than Ugandan children are, learners acquire between 500 and 600 words by end of
their third school year (Heugh 2011). Given the limited exposure to English that rural
Ugandan learners receive (particularly those in government schools)—with negligible
exposure to English television programmes, limited availability of English (story)
books, no English newspapers, and teachers with limited English proficiency—it may
be challenging for Ugandan learners to reach the NCDC-expected English vocabulary
threshold of 800 words within three years.
By contrast, classroom observations in private schools, where learners had longer and
more exposure to English, indicated that learners were able to answer in English their
teachers’ questions and instructions. Private-school learners thus appeared to have

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Ssentanda, Southwood and Huddlestone Curriculum Expectations versus Teachers’ Opinions

developed comparatively better English production skills than their government-school

peers.

6.3. Teacher Training

One of the questions on the background questionnaire asked teachers to indicate their
highest level of education. As indicated in Table 1, the highest qualification of the 21
rural teachers was a Grade III certificate, which means that after completing Senior
IV, they were trained for two years in a Teachers’ Training College. It is also evident
from the table that three participating teachers had no teacher training or other post-
school training. These three teachers all worked in private schools. Many rural private
schools in Uganda employ untrained teachers, because it is cheaper to hire untrained
than trained personnel. No untrained teachers are hired by the government; also, in rural
areas, teacher salaries paid by the government are typically higher than those in private
schools.9

Table 1: Teachers’ level of education

Teachers Highest qualification obtained
Senior IV* Grade III certificate Diploma University
degree
P1 to P3 (n = 13) 2 11 0 0
P4 and P5 (n = 8) 1 7 0 0
*SeniorIV= seven years primary education + four years lower secondary education; no
Higher School Certificate.

With regard to teachers’ competence to teach English, not all were trained teachers
(e.g. some taught after completing only Senior IV), and thus not all were trained to
teach English. Recall that P1 to P3, according to NCDC stipulations, are to be taught
following the one-teacher-one-class model. This implies that even P1 to P3 teachers who
were trained to teach Mathematics and Science only, for example, will teach English (cf.
Cohen and Ball 1990).
Relatedly, teacher preparation prior to the introduction of the thematic curriculum
was inadequate according to the interviewed teachers. Similar to Altinyelken’s (2010)
finding, teachers in our study reported that training on implementing the new, thematic

9 This is however not the case in urban areas: Private schools in urban areas pay the highest teacher
salaries and so attract the most qualified teachers. Recall that we are reporting only on Rakai district
in this article, but that teachers in other areas of Uganda also completed the background questionnaire.
Of the 14 participating teachers in urban schools in Kampala district, six had university degrees in
teacher education, three had diplomas and five had Grade III certificates. All 14 thus had post-school
training.

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Ssentanda, Southwood and Huddlestone Curriculum Expectations versus Teachers’ Opinions

curriculum lasted 10 days; one teacher from each school was trained, and that teacher
then had to replicate the training at his/her school. During the interviews, teachers stated
that they felt inadequate to replicate the training. This implies that many teachers were
not ready for implementing the thematic curriculum and for facilitating the learning of
English by means of this curriculum.

6.4. The Challenge of Teaching Methods

Another factor that makes it difficult for rural children to acquire the required number
of English words in three years is the mismatch between the teaching procedures
recommended by the NCDC and those that teachers actually employ. For example, the
NCDC recommends short dialogues in which learners are to speak to classmates in
order to comprehend and contextualise what they learn in English lessons. However, no
dialogues were observed during any lessons during the three months of data collection.
Games, role-play, acting, speech exercises, rhymes, reading exercises were also not
observed in English lessons in government schools. Some teachers were indeed observed
attempting to employ songs in their English lessons, but, contrary to what is expected by
the thematic curriculum, these songs were not related to the topic of the day. One reason
for the mismatch between what teachers do and what the curriculum stipulates could be
a lack of teacher training and preparation for implementing the curriculum.

6.5. The Challenge of Time

Based on the classroom observations, teachers in government and private schools used
their available lesson time differently. The NCDC guidelines state that lessons should
be 30 minutes long; however, those in private schools lasted for 40 to 60 minutes, thus
providing their learners with more in-class exposure to English than that received by
government-school learners. Recall that private schools also teach learners from P3
onwards for more hours per day than government schools do. Moreover, a number of
government-school teachers arrived late for class. For instance, two of the observed
English lessons lasted 17 and 15 minutes, respectively, instead of 30 minutes.10 This
reduces learner–teacher contact hours and, cumulatively, learner exposure to English,
especially because the main (or sole) exposure to this language in government rural
schools is classroom-based. By contrast, teachers in private schools were punctual.
Their punctuality was closely monitored by school directors and/or head teachers
(who have a no-tolerance approach to poor time management), a practice absent in the
studied government schools. The disparity in time allocation and resultant exposure to
English in government and private schools makes for a disparity in vocabulary learning
opportunities as well.

10 Teachers also arrived late for other subject lessons, not only for English lessons.

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Ssentanda, Southwood and Huddlestone Curriculum Expectations versus Teachers’ Opinions

6.6. Answering the Research Questions

As regards the first research question, namely what kind of LTSM are used, government
teachers use government-supplied material, which they view as inadequate in quality,
whereas private schools supplement these materials with those available on the open
market. Teachers view the latter as superior to the former, but government schools do
not have the funding needed to purchase additional LTSM.
The second research question, namely the challenges pertaining to the acquisition
of English vocabulary among rural learners, was answered in the previous sections;
based on data collected by means of a questionnaire, teacher interviews and classroom
observations, these challenges can be summarised as follows: inappropriate LTSM (in
terms of quality and quantity); limited opportunities to hear and practise English in
government schools; insufficient teacher training to implement the thematic curriculum
optimally; not following best practice teaching methods; and insufficient learner–teacher
contact time in government schools.
Some of the differences between government and private schools as regards the teaching
of vocabulary (research question 3) were referred to above: Compared to government
schools, private schools have access to a wider range and better quality of LTSM, have
longer school days from P3 onwards and longer English lessons, and make better use of
the teaching time available to them. Relatedly, in answer to the fourth research question
(regarding opportunities for learners to be exposed to English at school), private schools
start using English as sole LoLT from pre-primary school onwards, whereas English is
introduced as LoLT alongside the MT in P4 in government schools (and as sole LoLT as
of P5), with English-as-subject lessons starting in P1, the first year of school for those
who attend government schools.

7. Conclusion
The main finding of the present study is that the NCDC expectations for rural Ugandan
learners to be proficient in the English language and use it as LoLT and sole language of
assessment after three years of formal schooling are unrealistic, given the circumstances
in which these learners acquire English. Classroom observations and teachers reports
indicate that learners are in fact not ready to use English as LoLT from P4 onwards,
amongst other reasons due to limited exposure to the language. Limited exposure to
English outside the classroom has been reported elsewhere (cf. NCDC 2007a; Read and
Enyutu 2004), particularly for children in rural areas. This study indicates that exposure
to English in the classroom is also limited: In rural government schools, learners interact
with one another and their teachers in Luganda, except during English lessons, and a
number of rural-based teachers are not sufficiently proficient in English to act as good
(sole) sources of English input.

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Ssentanda, Southwood and Huddlestone Curriculum Expectations versus Teachers’ Opinions

In order for rural Ugandan learners to reach the threshold of 3000 to 5000 word families
required to use in English as sole LoLT (cf. Nation 2006), policy makers need to rethink a
number of issues. These include: (i) the revision—taking into account available research
findings—of their current expectation that Ugandan learners (including rural learners)
can acquire CALP in English within three school years; (ii) the provision of relevant
and appropriate LTSM to accompany the thematic curriculum; (iii) the employment
of trained teachers of English;11 and (iv) following an additive approach rather than
a transitional approach to the teaching and learning of English in Uganda, given the
reported success of the additive approach in fostering the acquisition of literacy and the
L2 and also in producing functionally bilingual learners (Hornberger 1991).
Within the current limitations and circumstances, rural primary school teachers need a
lot of support in the form of refresher courses, seminars and workshops to sharpen their
skills of teaching English as an L2.
No publications on English vocabulary learning by Ugandan learners could be traced; this
article could thus be the first to highlight the circumstances in which such learning takes
place in Uganda. The scope of the study may be too narrow to make generalisations—
given the small number of participants and focus on vocabulary learning only instead
of on all language domains—but the article has indicated the need for further studies on
English vocabulary learning in Uganda, the results of which can inform the language-
in-education policies and language teaching practices in this African context.

Acknowledgements
Parts of this article are based on Medadi E. Ssentanda’s PhD dissertation, “Mother
Tongue Education and Transition to English Medium Education in Uganda: Teachers’
Perspectives and Practices versus Language Policy and Curriculum.” http://hdl.handle.
net/10019.1/95855.
We thank the two anonymous reviewers for the useful comments from which this article
gained shape and meaning. Also, thank you to Gibson Ncube (PhD) for the comments
provided on the first drafts of the article.

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