Richard Mabala

Richard Frank Satterthwaite (born 11 December 1949), popularly known as Richard Mabala, is a British-born Tanzanian author, social activist, columnist and academic, predominantly recognized for his tale books Hawa The Bus Driver, Mabala The Farmer and Run Free which won him a CODE's Burt Award for African Literature. Quotes I am a teacher of English and I am proud of that. I taught English in different institutions for 20 years and I still continue to do so. I trained as a language teacher and I believe there are better methods of teaching English than just talking in English about any subject. When I first came to Tanzania, the claim was that every teacher is an English teacher which, even in 1973 was patently not true of some of the teachers I taught with (and Milambo SS was one of the top schools in the country at the time. And I am not referring only to Tanzanians. Even some of the expats who came were patently not English teachers either). Yet in those days, for example there were only 6 or 7 schools teaching Literature in English at A-Level and the number of people doing the O-Level exam was, I believe, less than 10,000. Mchujo ulikuwa mkali sana and the majority of those completing primary school still did not get a chance to show whether they could or could not use English as a medium of instruction. Therefore, as an English teacher and educationalist (yes I am) I fail to understand why academics and experts in other fields cannot understand that a child needs to study in a language they understand. I accept the argument about Kinyaturu etc and maybe that should be visited as well but I think it is being exaggerated. In my work in NGOs and for UNICEF I have travelled to most parts of the country, including remote villages, and there are not so many places where you cannot be understood if you talk in Swahili … not by everyone but by a large number. And the younger the group the more likely they are to understand you. This, I accept is a personal observation and should be backed up by research (although the Uwezo researchshows the large majority do understand Swahili) Why on earth do we want to repeat the definition of madness by continuing to preach the same things over and over again when to date the situation continues to go downhill whatever remedies are tried. Most of my early writing has been reactive, in that I respond to a particular issue or situation. I wanted to see that my students’ poems were read, that there were books that tell stories in a Tanzanian context, that there are other voices heard – other than that of party leaders. I must have written about 700 Makengezas now and 500 Binti Hidayas over a period of more than 20 years. I feel I should give more time to it to try and share my ideas as part of a contribution to debates on development, gender, and young people. I do not think I have a ‘great message to give the world’ but I think I can provoke more discussion. During that time (1973-1989), I was marking the National Exams for English and Literature in English. It was a mammoth job but unfortunately was made much easier by the number of schools where the students had no English at all so in order to keep up with our daily targets we could take a school and mark it in 10 minutes (with 2 different people marking every question). This was because not a single student in the school could write more than 5 lines, unless they copied part of the Comprehension passage). Ask anyone who marked the National Exams and they will tell you the same. It was a soul destroying exercise because you knew you were marking the school not the student and that they did not have the English to do exams in English. All this was before the rapid expansion of secondary schools that we have seen over the last 15 years. When I was teaching history, it was certainly good for my creativity as I had to invent all sorts of new ways to get them to understand, including drama etc and whenever I got to a historical concept I would teach in Swahili and then repeat three times in English before moving on. What a waste of time for someone who wants to teach History, or Physics, or whatever subject they would like their students to understand. If I had taught in the language they understood, they would have needed less classes in History in order to understand more (the primary history syllabus in Swahili was actually more detailed than the secondary school one) and more classes could have been given to the teaching of English in a systematic manner, using the best methodologies available to ensure that their English improved as well. I am 100% sure the students would have had better English as a result. External links Category:Authors from Tanzania Category:Activists from Tanzania Category:Social activists Category:Academics from Tanzania Category:1949 births Category:Living people