Authors: Harid Mwambula (Tanzania Institute of Accountancy) and Dunlop Ochieng (The Open University of Tanzania)
Abstract: Tanzania’s policies related to language marginalize nearly 150 Ethnic Community Languages (ECLs) by excluding them from official domains, including formal education, while privileging Kiswahili as the sole nationally sanctioned language in primary education. Despite the rejection, the excluded ethnic community languages are still used unofficially in classrooms due to their inalienability in a phenomenon known as translanguaging. Consequently, this study focused on translanguaging practice and its motivations among pupils in Rungwe, Tanzania. The study purposively selected 48 participants from 4 rural primary schools (8 teachers and 40 learners) through observation and interviews. The study revealed that translanguaging proved quite useful and practical support for teachers and learners in greetings, explaining concepts, drawing attention, defining vocabularies, asking questions, summarizing lessons and dismissing the class. In this light, legalizing translanguaging would maximize its benefits in the teaching-learning process in Tanzania. Developing inclusive policies, procedures and guidelines for the use of these other non-official languages in schools, rather than banning and punishing their users, would maximize the attainment of educational goals, such as critical thinking, high academic performance, inclusivity and high self-esteem among learners.