“When a student in my tutorial wants to ask for clarification in isiXhosa, I answer them straight away right there in the tutorial,” reports a Linguistics tutor.* “I feel it’s against common sense to reply to their question in isiXhosa with an English answer.”

While many tutors may share this opinion, the use of multiple languages in a tutorial varies from faculty to faculty and department to department in Rhodes University tutorials between tutor and student. This is the sense that I got when interviewing multiple tutors across faculties and departments across campus in preparation for the annual language committee’s multilingual colloquium, which focuses this year on multilingual tutoring at our institution. “In law tutorials, there is no room to speak in another language other than English,” an LLB tutor explains. “The syllabus is quite rigid in that regard and I will only ever speak in another language if a student approaches me after the tutorial, as I fear that code-switching in tutorials takes too much time away from the content.”

Many science and business tutors reported similar restrictions: “Many of our students cannot think of an equivalent of the word in their mother-tongue,” a tutor said. “One also doesn’t want to use one language that the majority do not speak – while those few minutes spent using one language benefit a portion of the tutorial for five minutes, how much time is lost for the rest of the students?” In the CHERTL tutor pilot course that took place this year, a discussion began in a session where student tutors realized “the quiet students” may not simply be shy – but not confident enough to speak in English. “I constantly have trouble with student hand-ins,” one tutor in the course explained. “One doesn’t know what to do when their grammar isn’t sufficient, as like in law, when one is required to produce writing in English in a formal, academic register.” “When it comes to language-use in tutorials, tutors don’t always have a say,” another tutor explained. “We get our orders from our departments as to how tutorials are to be run.” Many departments are leading the way, however, seeing the need and answering the call of their multilingual students to cater for other South African languages. For example, the Politics department has begun translating course outlines themselves.

Furthermore, I recently attempted something different with my Linguistics tutorial group: I asked my tutorial a definition of a complex linguistic concept in English. They gingerly opened their Linguistics manuals and read the answer to me. Accepting this, I asked how many students spoke isiXhosa in the tutorial. Six of them of ten said they could. Five of these were students that barely spoke willingly in my tutorial within the larger group space. “Okay,” I said, turning to them. “Can you explain this metafunction to me in isiXhosa?” I was greeted with dumbstruck expressions. “Yoh, it’s hard,” they said. “There are no equivalents for some of the words.” “That’s okay,” I said. “Try anyway.” It was the most active I’d ever seen them. The other four students watched with interest as a debate occurred between the six students. Eventually, I hear a determined voice tell me their definition. She stops and says, “what’s the word for opinion?” Another of the six students immediately answers her. “Ah, that’s right!” I watched this amazing event unfold before my eyes. “Now write that down,” I said. “If you can explain this in your mother-tongue, and understand it with ease, you will without a doubt know what that concept means and be able to apply it.” I saw pens hit paper. This took less than five minutes, but I hope I inspired work outside the borders of English that not only creates opportunities for multilingual engagement, but for a way for multiple languages to enter tutorial spaces.

It is interesting to note, however, that in other tutorials, my colleagues reported a lack of interest from students. “Some just didn’t want to try – especially if they felt there were too little speakers in the tutorial that would benefit,” a fellow tutor said. So are multiple languages always necessary in tutorials? “I think it depends,” a tutor for Journalism explains. “It depends on the number of students that can speak the language and that will benefit from it.” Multilingualism is a tool that can be used to aid learning, but timing seems to be an interesting factor in regard to its effectiveness. Ultimately, there is a shift on this campus to address and be more aware of the students’ linguistic needs across faculties and departments. There is a need now, more than ever, for multilingual tutoring strategies that tutors can utilize in their tutorials to assist them in this endeavour.?

*Names have not been included in this article in order to protect the identities of participants interviewed