An Analysis of Classroom Language Practices among First Graders upon Entry into Grade One in a Cosmopolitan Chongwe Urban District

Zambia is considered as a multilingual country with all the classrooms being multilingual. While the National Literacy Framework (2013) policy currently states that the official regional languages of instruction be used in all schools from grade one to grade four, with English taking over from grade five onwards. The aim of this study was to analyse the classroom language practices of the early graders upon entry into grade one in Chongwe urban district. Purposive sampling was used in this study to come up with 270 participants of which 20 were grade one teachers and 250 were grade one learners. Data was collected using interviews and classroom lesson observations. Qualitative data was analyzed thematically according to research objectives. The findings of the study are that the grade one classrooms of Chongwe District were multilingual as teachers and learners were able to speak more than one language. The study also found that the commonly spoken languages in the schools were Cinyanja, Soli, Bemba and English. The study showed that tranlanguaging was mainly used to engender epistemic access. The study concluded that since learners entered grade one without adequate proficiency in the regional language, teachers used translanguaging to bridge the gap between home and school literacies. The study has also demonstrated that while the curriculum has made provisions for transition at grade 5, there is need for policy directive on how the transition from home into the school is supposed to be managed linguistically speaking.