Teaching African Languages through Distance Education

Abstract

Distance education has always posed many problems for instructors, perhaps, the most obvious being how best to deliver lessons and maintain effective communication given the physical distance between student and instructor. There are even more challenges in L2 teaching where the major goal is to get learners to speak in the target language rather than simply acquiring knowledge and being able to demonstrate it through written assignments as is the case with many other subjects. However, with advances in technology, many of the problems can now be solved. This paper discusses distance education, looking at some of the challenges and how they can be resolved in the teaching of African languages. It is argued that a synchronous distance education class is ideal for teaching and learning a language, and when instruction is modeled on sound pedagogical principles can just be as effective as a conventional class.