Importance of Schooling

The most important part of school is learning, not only learning languages but also other fields such as science and history and the academic jargon that goes hand in hand with these other skills. As can be seen from Mgqwashu's (2002) article he was disadvantaged by not getting the proper education that a school child should have gotten. Without these requirements that learners get from school they cannot extend their knowledge and education, although, some do with great difficulty. The disadvantages Mgqwashu experiences are experienced by many school students to date. Writing about such problems, Hyland introduces a teaching practice which seems fit to get rid of the negative experiences. This essay focuses on Mgqwashu's difficulties at school and what is used as a medium of instruction by the teachers, genre approach, role of a teacher, avoidance of negative experiences, assumptions of lecturers,

Mgqwashu (2002) writes his article to make his voice heard about the problems he went through at school and at university. His experiences, both at school and university, represent the learning experiences of all learners and students not just him. Mgqwashu does this to show there is a problem in the school system that needs to be evaluated and fixed. Mgqwashu relays the information about the hardships he had as a student. He represents all learners and students as if to say they all share common educational background. Although this might be true in the educational system where students like Mgqwashu in the black township school system were not taught to write an academic essay, he also refers to other problems and says that every school child in the black townships went through this as well. However in this case it is not true. He assumes that all black township school teachers used their mother tongue as a mode and medium of instruction.
"Mother- Tongue was the medium of instruction (by default), did more harm then good" (Mgqwashu, 2002: 2).
This statement is not true for everyone because in some schools teachers did use English as their medium of instruction, unlike Mgqwashus' teachers who used their mother tongue. One must remember that although Mgqwashu (in the bigger picture) is said to represent all learners and students each student goes through their own experiences. Therefore it is preferable to say Mgqwashu talks and represents the majority of students in the South African school context.

To solve these problems as mentioned above Hyland talks about the genre approach to teaching, reading and writing. This approach emphasized on the importance of text structure and teaches us how to use language for different goals we want to achieve. He points out that
"teachers have always distinguished between narratives, expositions, reports and so on, when setting written work" (Hyland, 1992: 18 ).
What Hyland has to say here is clearly not what Mgqwashu sees and gets taught. This is evident in Mgqwashu's statement where he points out that
"Our teacher, then a student at on of the teacher training colleges, 'taught' us essay writing..." (Mgqwashu, 2002: 4). From this statement, we clearly see that Mgqwashu's student-teacher that was meant to teach them never did. Due to the student-teacher never teaching Mgqwashu and the other students they could not have learnt and understood about the different types of writing. This student-teacher might have known about the different types of writing but she never passed the information on. When the reader reads that the student-teacher never conveyed the information to the students. One can conclude that the teacher, herself, did not know these different types of writing for different purposes.

Based on the concept mention above- genre theory or the genre approach- one needs to understand the different education principles and approaches to teaching. Although most teachers get taught the same way to plan their lesson and then to teach it some do not practice it that way later on when they are qualified. Unfortunately this results in poor performance of learning and poor cognitive development of the students. Mgqwashu (2002: 3) "My grade 9 and 10 English teacher, who would always carry a stick when teaching, never smiled during lessons."
People know and except, if they are teachers or parents that learning is about asking questions and being in a comfortable environment. Neither of which were experienced by Mgqwashu. These factors make students want to learn and be part of the class, this in turn will make them goal orientated and reach for the goals they have set aside. The role of a teacher is not only to teach but to form the integration between students, this enables students to answer their friends' questions without always relying on the teacher. The teacher we know is a medium between the information and the students. A teacher is there to help and guide the students. In Mgqwashu's (2002) article he writes what he experienced,
"he was the only person who carried copies of the novels prescribed for each Grade. Because of this, during reading lessons.....it was almost impossible to raise a hand and ask him to repeat or clarify something. On one occasion during so- called 'Orals period' he gave me five lashes because of my "wrong pronunciation" or the word 'apple'" (Mgqwashu; 2002: 3 and 4).
In this case a school child’s learning abilities and cognitive thinking does not get developed to its maximum. The child’s self- esteem also gets compromised, all because the child pronounced 'apple' the wrong way. Mgqwashu as a Grade 9 and 10 student should have never gotten five lashes for what he did but rather he should have been corrected in the appropriate manner. This is a teacher’s role. Hyland (1992) and Johnson (1994) both talk and define genre based approach to having interaction and integration between not only the teachers and the students but also between fellow students. Hyland (1992) gives a description as to how the genre based approach and intervention in the classroom can be formed. Hyland (1992: 22 and 23)
"Intervention by the teacher....provide guidance and constructive input."
Constructive input does not refer to getting lashes for every wrong doing. It is when the teacher corrects the students in a way which will benefit him or her.

OBE which is Outcome Based Education focuses on the school children. Situations such as above would never occur in the concept of OBE. It is an education system which has been implemented in the South African school context to benefit the student. OBE enables a student to interact with his peers and his teacher. As one can see this is what genre- based approach deals with as well. The two might not be the same but are similar in the way that they both focus on the child and the child’s goal.
"Genre differ in that each has a different goal and they are structured differently to achieve those goals" (Hyland, 1992: 18).
Outcome Based Education enables the children to achieve their maximum abilities and goals and make them equipped for a life long journey of studying and learning. These goals are achieved by activities that are formed by the teachers. (11 March 2008, www.heinemann.co.za). This way of teaching is a way that develops a learner in their learning and cognitive thinking which we see that Mgqwashu never had. He might have had aspects of learning and cognitive development but not from the school itself. Mgqwashu (2002: 7)
"In the midst of all my experiences I have recounted regarding my learning of English...I would say I received an informal and private form of tuition from her."
Mgqwashu was lucky in this aspect because he was able to develop his English through this teacher where other kids that did want to learn did not. The education approach that Mgqwashu had is called the Traditional approach where the school children get taught to master their grammar rules. This approach will not help a student write an essay but the genre approach as Hyland (1992) mentions does. As Hyland (1992) writes about genre- approach one can see that the negative experiences experienced by Mgqwashu, who in turn represents school children from black township schools, will be solved.
Once Mgqwashu enters university we assume that he feels that things will be different as he writes,
"It was interesting, yet scary" (Mgqwashu, 2002:7). This is what he felt when he went for the first English meeting in 1994. From this we make the assumption that when he refers to the English being interesting is because he would be introduced to new concepts and ideas. The way he was going to be taught in university could be different from school. The scary part could be that the whole situation and context was new and different but he was looking forward to it. However later on in the article we see that what is said to the students and the way they are treated is not that different from his schooling days as mentioned above.
"...you are making a contract to learn. Be sure that....especially Black students, deregistering from the module in the past" (Mgqwashu, 2002: 7 and 8). This was said by one of the lecturers at the university. Although there is no physical pain like the lashes he got when he was in Grade 9 or 10 for miss- pronunciation the word 'apple', it is on the same line. It’s as if the lecturer says that the black students fail, they are the ones that deregister. This deregistration of black students is not necessarily cause they do not do their work (as lecturers assume) but rather because the black students who come form the same background as Mgqwashu did no get taught English the correct way. When Mgqwashu then enters university the lecturer automatically assume that they know everything to do with English and writing. The students then fail because they are not taught it by the university lecturers. We can see here that the Genre Theory explained by Hyland (1992: 18)
"Genre analysis is the study of how language is used within a particular context" has not been implemented by the school that Mgqwashu went to.

If it was not for Mgqwashu and other authors like him a teenager's voice would have not been heard. All these negative experiences that Mgqwashu and other black township students encountered were fortunately recognized by the education department of South Africa because someone spoke about the issues. A solution was found to all these problems of under-developed learning and cognitive thinking. The solution incorporates Genre- theory and the approach to teaching it. This teaching practice in South African has been implemented to schools all around the country.

REFERANCES
• Mgqwashu, E. M. 2002. On Becoming a Learner and User of English: telling it as it is. South African Association for Language Teachers (SAALT) CD ROM Conference Proceedings.
• Hyland, K. 1992. English Teaching Forum.
• Johnson, D. 1994. Language and Education in South Africa: the value of a Genre- based Pedagogy for Access and Inclusion. In: The Quest for Identity in a Multicultural Society: South Africa
• Outcome Based Education, 11th March 2008, www.heinmann.co.za